Big, bold and boreal

Catherine Grenier (Photo by Geneviève LeSieur)

It has been a busy time here at the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), with so much great work underway to accelerate conservation across the country. There are many exciting successes to celebrate, but one that stands out to me from recent months is a project we’ve nicknamed “big, bold and boreal.” This Earth Day, I was delighted to join colleagues and partners to launch our Boreal Wildlands project.

It’s certainly big, and bold: it’s the largest project that NCC has undertaken, and the biggest private land conservation project ever in this country. And it’s boreal, spanning nearly 1,500 square kilometres in Ontario’s boreal forest — part of the largest forest system on the planet.

In this issue, you’ll read about why landscape-scale protected areas are crucial if we are to tackle  the global challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. Working from coast to coast to coast, NCC aims to double the pace of conservation in the next few years. In the face of these challenges, nature offers us real solutions. That is why we are working at an unprecedented pace now to conserve the natural areas that are our life support systems.

Just as nature offers us solutions to the world’s most pressing issues, collaboration is the key to getting more nature into our lives. The Boreal Wildlands is a $46-million project. With the support of our partners, as well as individual donors and foundations, we have raised more than two-thirds of the funds. This spring, we launched a fundraising campaign to close the project. We need you!

To learn more about how you can support the Boreal Wildlands, or other projects, visit borealwildlands.ca.

Thank you as always for your support,

Catherine Grenier

President and CEO, Nature Conservancy of Canada