As vast stores of carbon, Canada's forests have an important role to play in our bid to fight climate change. But there are other, more traditional, roles forests play in the fabric of Canada that must remain priorities as well -- as habitat for our wildlife, as regulators of local microclimates and water flows, as sources of sustainable wood products, and as special places for recreation, to name a few.

However, climate change itself is putting enormous stress on our forests and severely undermining their ability to continue these vital functions. Our forests face an onslaught of environmental pressures -- changing growing seasons, shifting water and fire patterns, epidemic outbreaks of pests such as the Mountain Pine Beetle -- they have not experienced in millennia.

Changing patterns of climate will change the natural distribution of species on the landscape. In the temperate regions, present temperature zones could shift by 150-550 km. The challenge for forests is made all the more acute by the fact that different species adapt to climate shifts at different speeds, breaking the links that hold the forest together.

If salmon disappear from too warm streams, hungry bears and eagles can theoretically move north. But it won’t be as easy for cedar, fir and hemlock, which also depend on nitrogen-based nutrients from salmon that bears and eagles spread around the forest miles away from the original stream. This cascading effect, like a toppling house of cards, could eventually result in the extinction not just of individual species, but whole ecosystems.