Cause to celebrate - two million acres protected in Canada's heart of the Boreal Forest

[XemaSab]

So often, we hear of commitments to protect wilderness areas and the final, legal protection then takes years to realize. Today, the Canadian province of Manitoba and Poplar River First Nation announced the final, legal confirmation of a new protected area, the size of Yellowstone National Park. This new protected area was proposed and will be managed by the First Nation that has lived on its lands for thousands of years. It means conservation of critical Boreal forest habitat for migratory birds, caribou and bear. And it is the first step in achieving a new World Heritage Site in this region of almost 10 million acres.

NRDC congratulates the leadership and community of Poplar River First Nation and the people of Manitoba and the Manitoba Government for this incredible conservation of nearly two million acres of the endangered heart of the Boreal Forest. And we are happy that NRDC was able to play a role in advocating and achieving protection of this beautiful and culturally important land.

For over seven years, NRDC and our partners in Canada have been calling on Manitoba to honor the right of the Poplar River First Nation to manage its traditional lands in the Boreal Forest and to keep out unwanted industrialization, such as hydropower development, forestry and mining. We worked in close partnership with Poplar River First Nation to support their land use planning process and their efforts to have their conservation goals legally recognized. We applauded the support shown along the way by the Manitoba government when it re-routed a proposed hydropower transmission line outside of this region, when it supported the Poplar River land use planning process and when it supported the broader goal of the proposed Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Site in the region.

Now Manitoba has taken the critical step of legally confirming the protections set out in Poplar River First Nation’s Asatiwisipe Aki Management Plan that will maintain the natural habitat of the land and water and preserve the traditional culture and use of the land by local inhabitants. The plan manages for wilderness values -- protecting vital populations of woodland caribou, wolves and millions of migratory songbirds -- while ensuring that the First Nations can manage these dense woods for sustainable community development.

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/sclefkowitz/cause_to_celebrate_-_two_milli.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+switchboard_all+%28Switchboard%3A+Blogs+from+NRDC%27s+Environmental+Experts%29

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. k n r

[felix_numinous]

2. What a priceless gift

that will benefit the whole planet.