Land Development/ Degradation
In the Boreal Forest, certain areas are being burned and cleared for oil, gas, and manufacturing purposes. The sector of land where the degradation is happening is one of Canada's largest exports. That means that almost three percent of the wood that is being harvested is coming from the Boreal Forest. This is an increasingly worrisome problem because it harms and may endanger some of the species that live there. As mining and oil companies grow larger, there is more of a threat to the hundreds of species that have a niche in the Boreal Forest. Homes of many organisms may be destroyed due to the expanding corporate world which may cause changes in population size and changes in the food web of the Boreal Forest. It is also a concerning situation because it releases more unnecessary carbon into the atmosphere, affecting the carbon cycle and throwing it off balance. Most of the gas and oil production sites in Canada are in the same Boreal region that houses Canada's uranium product zone. This is another problem because the oil and mining companies put an endless supply of toxic chemicals into mind-shafts and pipelines causing erosion and other harmful damage, further lowering the soil quality. The erosion will also harm the decomposers that inhabit the forest. Additionally, 208.1 billion tons of carbon are stored in the Boreal Forest therefore, if large quantities were released into the atmosphere that would prove detrimental to the Earth and all its inhabitants. The Boreal Forest is officially one of the worlds largest carbon reservoirs due to the fact that it stores twenty-two percent of the carbon on Earth.