Forest Decline

Dryer conditions throughout the north have sparked huge forest fires covering millions of hectares. Forest fires in the Mackenzie Basin and adjacent areas further south and east have been the main contributor to a record surge in Canadian forest fires overall - with the three worst fire seasons ever recorded being 1989, 1995 and 1994. [9]

Fires in the Mackenzie Valley in 1995 forced the evacuation of the village of Fort Norman and of Exxon's northern outpost, Norman-Wells, half way down the Mackenzie River. The fires also caused serious air quality problems in Fort Simpson, destroyed long maintained traplines and eliminated critical caribou habitat.

In June 1996, a large fire, believed to be sparked by fireworks, was spread by high winds through tinder dry boreal forest north of Anchorage, Alaska. At the time this report was written, the fire had destroyed hundreds of homes, forced the evacuation of more than 1000 people and cost over $40 million in property damage. The fire was the worst natural disaster in terms of property damage to ever strike Alaska according to Governor Tony Knowles. [10]

A recent analysis by scientists from the Canadian Forest Service estimates that Canada's boreal forest has lost a fifth of its biomass because of record fires and insect outbreaks over the last twenty years. As a result, the Canadian boreal forest has switched from being a sink of, on average, 147 million tonnes of carbon a year, more than offsetting Canada's fossil fuel related carbon dioxide emissions, to a source of 57 million tonnes a year, more than that released by all the cars and power plants in Canada combined. [11]

If greenhouse gas levels double as projected, the resulting increase in fires, insect outbreaks and other disturbances, when combined with reproductive stress and interspecies competition, is expected to lead to the decline of between 50 - 90 percent of the existing global boreal forest and a corresponding massive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. [12]