Forest Change: An Initiative of the Canadian Forest Service of Natural Resources Canada for Enhancing Forest Sector Competitiveness in a Changing Climate

摘要

Canada is a forest country with 10% of the world's forest cover and 30% of its borealforest (Natural Resources Canada 2011). Forest land covers 348 million ha or 40%of Canada's land area (Natural Resources Canada 2011). Our forest resources sup-port a multi-billion dollar forest industry, thousands of jobs, and hundreds of communi-ties. Our forests also provide anarray of environmental and socialbenefits such as biodiversity, cleanair and water, carbon storage, out-door recreation, cultural services,and non-timber goods and services.Forests are climate sensitive andare, therefore, particularly vulnera-ble to changes in climate. There areimportant implications of climatechange for forest ecosystems andconsequently for the competitive-ness of our forest industry and ourforest-based communities. Adapta-tion can help the forest sector re-duce the negative impacts ofclimate change and also take advan-tage of new opportunities. Adapta-tion is the adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expectedclimatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportuni-ties (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007).Photo from the Forests of Canada collection, NRCan/CFS, 2003the British Columbia Government. Photo design by Julie Pic.