The coniferous forest that wraps around the subarctic latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere offers the world's best opportunity to apply conservation as a climate change strategy, according to a report released today.

The boreal forest, as it is called, must be preserved because it is holding vast amounts of carbon in and under its trees, and also because it offers a buffer for plants and animals impacted by climate change.

Cut down those trees and develop the land and all that carbon will be released into the atmosphere--and the animals and plants seeking sanctuary from the warmer lower latitudes will have nowhere to go.

Carbon-rich wetlands in Canada's Northwest Territories.

Photo by Chad Delany, Ducks Unlimited

"When the world thinks of forests and their value to offset global warming, tropical forests come to mind," say the Boreal Songbird Initiative and the Canadian Boreal Initiative, sponsors of the report The Carbon the World Forgot.

The report released today shows that the global impact of Canada's boreal forest, which stores nearly twice as much carbon per acre as tropical forests, has been vastly underestimated.

Canada's boreal forest

Map courtesy of Boreal Songbird Initiative

"The Carbon the World Forgot identifies the boreal forests of North America as not only the cornerstone habitat for key mammal species, but one of the most significant carbon stores in the world, the equivalent of 26 years of global emissions from burning fossil fuels, based on 2006 emissions levels. Globally, these forests store 22 percent of all carbon on the earth's land surface," says a statement accompanying the release of the report.

Breakdown of carbon stored by global forest biome

Chart courtesy of Boreal Songbird Initiative

"Past accounting greatly underestimated the amount and depth of carbon stored in and under the boreal forest," says Jeff Wells, an author of the report. "In addition to carbon storage in trees, organic matter accumulated over millennia is stored in boreal peatlands and areas of permafrost. Some of this boreal carbon has been in place for up to 8,000 years."

"The boreal forest's status as the most intact forest left on Earth also offers a unique opportunity for plants and animals forced to adapt to shifting habitats."

The boreal forest's status as the most intact forest left on Earth also offers a unique opportunity for plants and animals forced to adapt to shifting habitats. Most other habitats today are highly fragmented by human activity, creating a variety of additional obstacles for species survival, the statement added.

Oscar Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories

Photo by D. Langhorst, Ducks Unlimited

"In light of these findings, today's report urges that international negotiations on carbon and forest protection consider ways to account for and protect the boreal," the authors say.

"Any effective and affordable response to climate change should include preserving the world's remaining, carbon-rich old-growth forests," said Steve Kallick, director of the Pew Environment Group's International Boreal Conservation Campaign. "This report makes clear that nations must look not just at the tropics but at all the world's old-growth forests for climate change solutions."

Top intact forests--largest in red, followed by yellow and green, representing forests undisturbed to date by humans.

Map courtesy of Boreal Songbird Initiative

"Keeping that carbon in place by protecting boreal forests is an important part of the climate equation," said Andrew Weaver, "If you cut down the boreal forest and disturb its peatlands, you release more carbon, accelerating climate change." Weaver of the University of Victoria is a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Triangle Lake, part of northern Ontario's boreal forest

Photo by Jeff Wells, Boreal Songbird Initiative

"The collision of climate disruption and massive human degradation of ecosystems is seriously worrying globally," said conservation biologist Stuart Pimm of Duke University. "These changes are surely novel in earth's history. Maintaining the boreal forest's intactness will be critical to slowing ecosystem shifts and to providing migratory corridors for displaced wildlife." Stuart Pimm is a regular contributor to NatGeo News Watch. 

Global warming is expected to affect caribou populations worldwide, like this small herd near MacMillan Pass, in Canada's Northwest Territories.

Photo by Larry Innes, Canadian Boreal Initiative

"Conservation can be an important tool in the fight to mitigate climate change," said Larry Innes, director of the Canadian Boreal Initiative, a sponsor of the report. "International protocols and legislation need to create opportunities to maintain the carbon stored in intact boreal forest soils, peatlands, and wetlands while enabling indigenous and local communities to take a leadership role in determining how to best conserve not only carbon, but the full suite of ecological, cultural and economic values that the boreal forest represents."

The Bay-breasted warbler has declined 70 percent over the last 40 years. Only 7 percent of its boreal forest habitat is protected. The migratory bird breeds in the coniferous woodlands.

Photo by Jeff Nadler

More than 1,500 international scientists led by authors for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommended in 2007 that at least half of Canada's boreal forest be protected from further disturbance--in large part to keep both the boreal forest carbon bank and internationally significant wildlife habitats intact.

Despite the current lack of international protocol, several Canadian First Nation, provincial, and federal governments have taken important steps to protect hundreds of millions of acres of Canada's carbon rich boreal forest. In all, scientists are recommending that at least 300 million hectares be protected.

Read on for more photos, maps, and the full text of the executive summary of the report The Carbon the World Forgot:

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This satellite image of Novaya Zemlya, an archipelago in Russia's Arctic, launches a new ad hoc series on this blog I will call Earth from Space.

Look out for regular updates for unusual, beautiful, educational, newsworthy images released by public and commercial space agencies. I will be looking particularly for images that highlight the special geographic features of our planet.

Today's NASA Earth Observatory image of Novaya Zemlya gives us an opportunity to view not only a magnificent view but also the terrain that Russia recently proclaimed as a national park, a 3.7 million-acre zone that includes the northern part of Novaya Zemlya and some adjacent marine areas. The park will provide a much-needed sanctuary for polar bears and other Arctic species.

Novaya Zemlya consists of two major islands, Severny in the north and Yuzhny in the south, separated by a narrow strait, Matochkin Shar.

An extension of the Ural Mountains, this mountainous archipelago has an average altitude of roughly 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) above sea level, and glaciers cover much of the northern island, according to the original NASA caption.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, Novaya Zemlya was used as a nuclear test site.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this true-color image of Novaya Zemlya on July 27, 2009. (This image focuses primarily on the northern island. See an image for the entire archipelago on NASA's Web site.)

The sparsely vegetated land appears in shades of beige and icy white, NASA says. "Hints of turquoise along the northwestern coast likely result from sediments running off the island, or getting churned up by currents from the ocean floor, A narrow band of sea ice hugs the southeastern coast, and smaller pieces of sea ice float off the northern island's northeastern tip."

Before the turn of the twentieth century, Arctic sea ice used to linger along the coast of Novaya Zemlya's larger island each July. After the turn of the century, however, increased summertime melt made open ocean more common, NASA says.

NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Original NASA caption by Michon Scott based on interpretation by Walt Meier, National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The Geography of Swine Flu and Other Pandemics

The United Kingdom is the country most at risk to the spread of a swine flu epidemic, reports Maplecroft, a research organization that focuses on global risks to business.

The UK-based company released three maps and indices revealing the countries most at risk from an influenza pandemic, including swine flu and bird (avian) flu.

Maplecroft also created the Influenza Pandemic Risk Index (IPRI), which consists of three categories: Risk of Emergence, Risk of Spread, and Capacity to Contain. "Each index generates a list of countries most at risk and that require a tailored policy response on the part of government and business," Maplecroft said in a statement.

The map of Risk of Spread shows the United Kingdom most at risk to the spread of an influenza pandemic, ranking number 1 out of 213 countries. The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Russia, Canada and Japan are also categorized as extreme risk because of their high population density, urbanization and busy airports.

Even though the UK and other developed Western nations are at extreme risk of spread, their capacity to contain influenza pandemics ranks low risk, however. "Large stockpiling of drugs and a sophisticated health infrastructure, which the Capacity to Contain index captures, means they have very effective measures with which to fight human influenza," Maplecroft explained.

Sub-Saharan Africa stands out as the area least able to contain pandemic influenza with 27 out of the 30 most extreme risk countries.

"The capacity of a country to contain the spread of human influenza depends on factors of wealth, health infrastructure, education resources, information and communication networks, and governance."

"The Risk of Emergence index unsurprisingly categorises Mexico as extreme risk and ranks the country as fourth most at risk, whilst Vietnam, China and Bangladesh top the table," Maplecroft said.

Countries most prone to risk of emergence of swine or avian flu in humans are poorer countries that have dense rural populations, with living quarters in close proximity to livestock, Maplecroft said. This is compounded by poor hygiene, lack of access to clean water and sanitation and poor public health education.

Newly Emerging Set of Global Risks

"It is important to see a newly emerging set of global risks--whether pandemics, conflict and terrorism, resource security including water stress, or climate change as inter-related," said Alyson Warhurst, Chair of Strategy and International Development at Warwick Business School and one of the founding directors of Maplecroft.

"Climate change is causing drought and flooding which in turn leads to crop failures and the destruction of livelihoods which in turn lead to poverty and the conditions that we see increase vulnerability to pandemic flu."

Sources used to compile the Influenza Pandemic Risk Index include: WHO, UNESCO, FAO, World Organisation for Animal Health, World Bank, Environmental Research Group Oxford, World Resources Institute and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

The three IPRI maps and risk categories may be accessed on the Maplecroft Web site.

Maplecroft specializes in the analysis and creative visualization of global risks. Indicators, reports and interactive GIS maps are among the tools the company uses to assess vulnerability to over 100 global risks. The tools allow major international bodies to formulate strategy, control risk exposure, secure industry leadership and work towards a sustainable future, the company said in its statement.

NGS photo of Amur tigers by Michael Nichols

Loggers in Russia's Far East increasingly are cutting down Korean cedar pine, raising concerns that the endangered Siberian (or Amur) tiger could lose critical habitat and its prey could lose a major food source, the conservation charity WWF said today.

"Under pressure from the ongoing economic crisis, loggers are turning to the more lucrative Korean cedar pine (Pinus korajensis) as commodity prices for other types of wood fall, which in turn has led to large-scale illegal logging operations in the Ussuriiskaya taiga in Primorye," according to a statement released by WWF-Russia.

"Chinese importers of the Far Eastern wood have sharply dropped prices and demand for oak and ash wood as an answer to the world crisis," said Denis Smirnov, head of the forest program at WWF-Russia's Amur branch. "These species were the most desired ones for poachers before, but the demand was reduced after export customs duties for these species of timber had been increased from February 1."

"At the same time, Korean pine wood is still highly demanded both in domestic and international markets and is sold at rather high prices," Smirnov said.

Russia's Far East Korean cedar pine forests were heavily logged during the second half of the 20th century, particularly in the late 1990s, which resulted in a 50 percent reduction and left only around seven million acres (three million hectares) of the forests today, WWF said.

Although P. koraiensis is not nationally protected in Russia, its logging is either prohibited or regulated in certain provinces of Russia and China. "However, loggers typically exploit loopholes in regional regulations to launder illegally logged wood, often taking advantage of lax customs controls or by under-declaring the volume of legal exports," the statement added.

"This rampant and mindless logging is shocking and disturbs the habitat and prey base of some of the rarest animals in the world including the Amur tiger and Amur leopard," said Susan Lieberman, director of the Species Programme for WWF-International.

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