Weblog

by Tom

At the National Art Gallery in Ottawa last night, executive director Nicole Rycroft won the Canadian Boreal Award for Outstanding Contribution by an Individual. Our book campaigner David Leonard accepted the award on her behalf. Congrats Nicole!

Other award winners included former federal Environment Minister John Baird, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, the community of Fort Good Hope (NWT), the community of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninwug (northwestern Ontario), and William George. Markets Initiative magazine campaigner Neva Murtha and signatories Canadian Geographic and Hemlock Printers were nominees in a number of the award categories.

Nicole noted the Ontario Premier’s recent move to protect half of the province’s unallocated Boreal forest, “I hope other provincial and federal leaders take inspiration from Premier McGuinty’s leadership in stepping out to leave a significant conservation legacy in the Boreal. There is such incredible promise in his commitment, and of course, this is where the hard work starts to actually fulfil all that is in that promise. I look forward to the collaboration and creativity that will be required to bring it to fruition and to help caribou, be they in the allocated or unallocated areas of the province, prosper as a species.”

Markets Initiative is committed to preserving this vast northern forest that encircles the globe, a critical shield against global warming and home to many species including our own. Part of the Boreal’s power and uniqueness is that it brings environmental and human rights issues together with the market and political circles in a way that very few other places do.

Markets Initiative has been working with signatory companies and ally environmental organizations to secure large scale protection of endangered forest areas in Canada’s Boreal since 2003. During this time, Ontario and Québec have been priority provinces in our work with publishers, printers and mills. That said, Markets Initiative is committed to stimulating forest protection and sustainable management across Canada’s Boreal. Markets Initiative is working to secure:

• protection of critical habitat zones in allocated southern Boreal forest areas,
• sustainable forest management under FSC on remaining allocated southern Boreal forest lands, and
• large scale protection and conservation based land-use planning for currently unallocated northern Boreal forest areas.

More here about Canadian Boreal Initiative. Read the CBI news release here.

Tags: award, Best of the Boreal, Boreal forest, Canadian Boreal Initiative, Nicole Rycroft

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 4:21 pm and is filed under Ancient & Endangered Forests, Awards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.