Darkwoods Forest Carbon Project, Canada
Location
Canada
SDGs Certified
3
Solution Type
IFM
Project Type
Mixed Solution
Fact File
🐻 The conservation area is home to 39 confirmed species at risk, including grizzly bear, wolverine, bull trout, western skink and western screech owl.
📑 The project is working to research and restore endangered whitebark pine.
💧The forests plays a key role in providing fresh, clean water: the conservation area has more than 120 lakes within its boundaries, and is intersected by 17 different watersheds.
Partnership &
Certification
About this Project
The Problem
In British Columbia, liquidation logging is legal and not uncommon on private land. Logging is a major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and loss of biodiversity.
The Darkwoods property had a history of sustainable forest management with a moderate harvest level. This means that there was still a significant amount of old growth forest in the project area when it was listed for sale, providing an opportunity for liquidation logging and other industrial logging practices and/or extensive real estate development, or for conservationists to step in.
The Solution
Nature Conservancy Canada purchased the land for conservation to avoid its use for commercial forestry - and the associated release of carbon emissions. Instead, the project focuses on protecting and enhancing the diverse ecosystems found in the area (IFM - Improved Forest Management). Low levels of timber removal will happen periodically, but only as part of better managing the forests: for example to reduce forest fire risk from excess new growth.
Project Location
SDG Contributions
