Because they sequester and store billions of tonnes of carbon in vegetation, peat, and soils, forests are a critical shield against runaway global warming. Canada's boreal forest stores an estimated 208 billion tonnes of carbon, the equivalent of 26 years of global greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.

Over the past two centuries the majority of the world's forests have been destroyed, degraded, and fragmented. Today only about one-fifth of the Earth's original forests remain highly intact. Global population is expected to surpass 7 billion this year, with demands on forests rising.

But hope is coming from a part of the world that many people don't know much about -- Canada's boreal, the world's largest intact forest.

In 2008, spurred on by a letter from 1,500 international scientists in support of the Framework, premiers of Ontario and Quebec pledged that each province would protect half of its northern boreal forest. Manitoba has not made such a promise.

Canada is in the forefront of forest conservation. Since 2000, 130 million acres of Canada's boreal forest have received permanent or interim protected status. Also 110 million forestry acres have been or are in the process of being certified under the Forest Stewardship Council.