The region covers 9,400 square kilometres of land, plus existing parks and protected areas including Woodland Caribou Provincial Park and the Eagle-Snowshoe Conservation Reserve in Ontario, and Atikaki Wilderness Park and parts of Nopiming Provincial Park in Manitoba.

Establishing and jointly managing the area is a step by government toward inscription of Eastside Manitoba and Ontario boreal forestlands as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The announcement was criticized as being a bureaucratic arrangement that does not increase amount of protected land, and does little to prevent mining and logging or to protect woodland caribou. None of the region's First Nations were party to the announcement.

"There's no new protected areas," said Janet Sumner, executive director of the Wildlands League. "They're basically saying, 'We have existing wilderness areas and we're going to talk to each other as we manage them.' "

Eric Reder of the Wilderness Committee said if Manitoba was serious about protecting woodland caribou, it would have included new land under a new wilderness area, including where caribou calve in the northeast corner of Nopiming park. "That area remains at risk to logging despite a 1992 report stating it should be set aside from any development," he said.