Canada’s boreal forest would be spared under conservation accord

More than half of Canada's vast northern forest, about 1 million square miles in all, would be exempt from logging and other industrial development under an agreement announced Monday by a coalition of native tribes, environmentalists, and businesses.

The agreement, if adopted by the national and local governments, is aimed at protecting a largely pristine evergreen expanse that has large populations of bears, wolves, caribou, and other species along with hundreds of native communities.

"By acting now, Canada can safeguard one of the world's remaining large ecosystems while it is still for the most part ecologically intact," said Cathy Wilkinson, director of the Canadian Boreal Initiative, a member of the coalition that crafted the agreement.