Environmental Nature and Tourist Maps Enviro-Map.com

The Boreal Forest – The World’s Carbon Storehouse

The Boreal forest (depicted in green in the map below) is located in Canada and is part of the larger Biome called the “Taiga”. The Taiga covers the northern areas of the Arctic tree line. Canada’s Boreal forest in particular is considered the largest carbon storehouse in the world. It houses 22 percent of the the carbon stored in the world’s land surface. The Boreal stores twice as much carbon per unit area compared to tropical forests. This is due to the cold temperatures which preserve the soils resulting in deep organic soils that are thousands of years old.

The Threat to the Boreal Forest
Global warming and deforestation have threatened to release large amounts of carbon from the Boreal forest. 90 percent of all of Canada’s carbon is stored in the Boreal region. It is estimated that 186 billion tons of carbon is stored in the soil therefore destruction of the forest would greatly accelerate global warming. In response to this threat the Canadian Government implemented a plan to protect 25 million acres of Boreal land in November 2007.

Reference

http://www.cpaws.org/

Related posts:

1. The World’s Tropical Rainforest The world's tropical rain forest is located in South...
2. Amazon Rainforest Map Map of the Amazon Rainforest The Extent of the Rainforest...
3. Map of Antarctica Here is a map of Antarctica I designed showing...
4. Rainforest in Thailand In 1945, 61 percent of Thailand was covered by...
5. Australia’s Precious Forests Here is a map showing the general location of...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.