Science is at the heart of all that we do within the International Boreal Conservation Campaign. Our conservation goals are formulated from the best available scientific understanding of the requirements of species and ecosystems. Our strategies are implemented and adapted based on the newest science and our communications are carefully guided and screened to ensure scientific accuracy.
North America’s Largest Intact Forest Ecosystem
The rationale behind protecting the Boreal came from new scientific studies that showed that the Boreal was one of only a handful of the world’s remaining intact forested ecosystems. Since that recognition we have continued to assist in the development of new scientific assessments of the conservation values of the Boreal including its importance as the nesting grounds for billions of birds, as habitat for some of the world’s largest populations of wolves, caribou, and bear, and its role as a vast reservoir of natural capital worth an estimated 90 billion dollars in ecosystem services, freshwater aquifers, and carbon storage, among others.
New Ways of Assessing Conservation Values
This work on assessment of conservation values resulted in the presentation of a letter to Canadian government leaders signed by over 1500 scientists from around the world that detailed the importance of the Boreal in scientific terms. And the work continues through the formation of a Boreal Science Panel made up top scientists from the U.S. and Canada who are advising the development of a broad array of new methods of assessing and mapping conservation values and applying them to the Boreal in a first-ever global scale ecoregional assessment.
How Much is Enough?
The International Boreal Conservation Campaign and its partners have used science to guide the adoption of the broad goal of seeing at least 50% of the Boreal region placed into protected areas and the remaining 50% developed with sustainable practices. This recommendation is based on a careful review of the science of state-of-the-art land-use conservation plans that strive to maintain a full compliment of animal and plant species, migratory phenomena, predator-prey dynamics, ecological services and other forms of natural capital.
Best and Newest Science
The International Boreal Conservation Campaign is committed to ensuring that the best and newest science is continually applied to Boreal conservation and that this science is communicated effectively to partners and the public. We produce fact sheets, web content, articles, and reports on a variety of conservation science topics. With our partner organizations, we have convened working groups and symposia on topics as diverse as conservation of boreal birds, mapping habitat for woodland caribou, global warming and forest protection, and mitigation banking. With our communications division, we have assisted scientists in educating the scientific community and the public through scientific presentations and publications, op-eds, media interviews, and public presentations.
New Ways of Quantifying Conservation Threats
We have initiated a series of leading edge scientific analyses and mapping of the threats to the Boreal and to its multitude of conservation values. These analyses have or will quantify impacts and levels of threat from human-caused disturbance including from mining, oil and gas extraction, logging, hydropower, global warming and other activities. Already one IBCC sponsored modeling analysis has demonstrated the expected loss of Woodland Caribou from the Tar Sands region of Northeastern Alberta given current land use planning trajectories. |
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Learn about the letter to Canadian government leaders signed by 1,500 prominent international scientists >
Click to see maps showing carbon storage in Canada's Boreal Forest >
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