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Photo: Garth Lenz
Environment
The Narwhal: Carbon Cache
2020

One of the goals of our Environment program’s Carbon Landscapes initiative is to increase the level of awareness and understanding among Canadians about natural climate solutions. Through support for in-depth research, reporting, and engaging coverage of this work, we help to shed light on the issues, people, and communities working at the intersection of climate, biodiversity, and sustainable livelihoods.

Carbon Cache, a special series produced by The Narwhal and funded by Metcalf, looks at the role of Canada’s natural landscapes in the fight against climate change. Featured below are stories from the series.

 
Photo: Garth Lenz
Environment
Could an Indigenous conservation area in Hudson Bay also be the key to saving carbon-rich peatlands?
Inori Roy
The Mushkegowuk Council has been pushing to protect the area in northern Ontario — a major carbon sink the size of Portugal — for decades.
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Photo: Alana Paterson
Environment
Four ways people are trying to protect Canada’s natural landscapes
Josie Kao
Canada is home to a vast amount of carbon-rich ecosystems. Protecting them is crucial to fighting the climate crisis.
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Photo: Jeremy Williams / River Voices Productions
Environment
Carbon and caribou: why the Dene Tha’ are forging a plan to protect a northern Alberta lake
Sharon J. Riley
The nation is proposing the first Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area in the province to protect the region surrounding one of Alberta’s largest lakes, which stores five times more carbon per square metre than the Amazon.
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Photo: Amber Bracken
Environment
Where federal parties stand on Canada’s sexiest emissions fix: nature-based climate solutions
Stephanie Wood
Here’s how the major parties are leveraging everything from conservation goals to restorative agriculture to Indigenous Guardians programs in their campaign platforms.
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Photo: Alana Paterson
Environment
Meet the Cheakamus, the only community forest to develop carbon offsets in B.C.
Stephanie Wood
It may be lesser known than the poster-child Great Bear Rainforest, but the humble Cheakamus forest near Whistler is charting new territory when it comes to sustainable timber harvest that outlaws clearcuts, respects Indigenous governance and combats the climate emergency.
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Photo: Amber Bracken
Environment
Canada invests $25 million into natural carbon storage in drought-stricken Prairies
Stephanie Wood
Funds to conserve and restore wetlands and grasslands may provide some relief for Canadian farmers struggling in a year of record-breaking heat waves and persistent drought.
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Photo: Amber Bracken
Environment
Natural climate solutions could offset 11 per cent of Canada’s emissions by 2030: report
Sharon J. Riley
Study published in Science Advances finds protecting and restoring natural ecosystems, such as wetlands, forests and grasslands, could help Canada meet its climate goals.
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Photo: Sara Hylton
Environment
Federal budget gives farmers leg up in reducing carbon pollution
Sharon J. Riley
Ottawa pegs $270 million for ‘agricultural climate solutions’ to help farmers protect wetlands and adopt practices like cover cropping and rotational grazing.
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Photo: Darren Calabrese
Environment
From extractive to regenerative: experts highlight benefits of nature-based climate solutions
Eva Voinigescu
Panellists across the country shared success stories during The Narwhal’s online event on the role of Canada’s natural landscapes in the fight against climate change.
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City of Surrey
Environment
Blue carbon: the climate change solution you’ve probably never heard of
Stephanie Wood / Steph Kwetásel'wet Wood
Coastal ecosystems like salt marshes sequester millions of tonnes of carbon, but have been whittled away over the decades. Now Canadian scientists are looking to re-flood marshes in an effort to mitigate the impacts of sea-level rise and store carbon, and seaweed is having its moment in the spotlight.
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Photo: Darren Calabrese
Environment
Could 80,000 family woodlot owners be the key to saving the Acadian forest?
Lindsay Jones
Only remnants of this carbon-rich forest in the Maritimes remain after centuries of clear-cutting. Thousands of family forest owners have a stake in its survival. The question is: can they earn revenue from its protection rather than its destruction?
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Photo: Alex Harris / Raincoast
Environment
What’s an intact forest worth? The tricky task of quantifying Canada’s nature-based climate solutions
James Wilt
The sixth article in the Carbon Cache series explains carbon offsets.
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Photo: Sara Hylton / The Narwhal
Environment
Meet the Canadian farmers fighting climate change
Sharon J. Riley
Conservation and agriculture have often been at odds. But as Ottawa develops the first federal carbon offset standard, farming techniques that reduce greenhouse gas emissions are having a moment.
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Photo: Greenpeace
Environment
‘It’s like paradise for us’: the Cree Nation’s fight to save the Broadback Forest
Sarah Cox
This 1.3 million hectare forest in Quebec has never been logged or known the incursion of roads. It’s also one of the most carbon dense places on the planet, holding twice as much carbon as the Amazon per hectare — but community members fear ‘the loggers are coming’.
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Photo: Amber Bracken
Environment
Meet the people saving Canada’s native grasslands
Stephanie Wood
Grasslands sequester billions of tonnes of carbon and support hundreds of plant species and over 60 species at risk. They are also one of the world’s most endangered ecosystems.
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Photo: Garth Lenz
Environment
The battle for the ‘breathing lands’: Ontario’s Ring of Fire and the fate of its carbon-rich peatlands
James Wilt
Northern Ontario's muskeg serves as home to dozens of First Nations, stores immense amounts of carbon and sits on top of vast mineral deposits. Whose vision for the bogs and fens will win out?
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Photo: Garth Lenz
Environment
One key solution to the world’s climate woes? Canada’s natural landscapes
Jimmy Thompson
Scientists have found protecting nature can provide more than one-third of the emissions reductions required to meet the world’s 2030 climate targets, thrusting Canada — home to 25 per cent of the planet’s wetlands and boreal forests — into the hot seat.
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