Boreal Wildlands (Canada)

In August 2022, the Wyss Foundation provided a $4,000,000 grant to the Nature Conservancy of Canada to help permanently protect more than 358,000 acres in Ontario, Canada, known as the Boreal Wildlands – the largest private conservation project in Canada’s history.

The Boreal Wildlands property harbors more than one hundred lakes and 800 miles of rivers, streams, and shoreline. Its corridors are home to important wildlife species, including threatened woodland caribou, and it provides a nursery for breeding songbirds, including the threatened Canada warbler and olive-sided flycatcher. The forests and wetlands on the property, including deep peatlands, act as carbon sinks, absorbing vast amounts of greenhouse gas emissions and storing carbon.

Boreal Wildlands stores an estimated 192 million tons of CO2e, equivalent to the average lifetime emissions of 3 million cars. The Nature Conservancy of Canada’s innovative conservation finance program leverages certified carbon credits to attract more private capital investment supporting similar conservation work across Canada.

The Boreal Wildlands includes the traditional territories of many Indigenous communities within Treaty 9, and holds great cultural significance for people who have cared for these lands since time immemorial. Nature Conservancy of Canada engages with local Indigenous communities to determine how they wish to connect with the lands and the surrounding area, and how this project can benefit them. The project also includes the first joint monitoring program for woodland caribou with Constance Lake First Nation.