The Narwhal: Carbon Cache - Metcalf Foundation

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

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.

Photo: Alana Paterson

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.

Jeremy-Williams-Mbehcho-Bistcho-Lake-1024x683

Photo: Jeremy Williams / River Voices Productions

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.

Photo: Amber Bracken

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.

Cheakamus-Community-Forest-Nature-based-Climate-Solutions-The-Narwhal-Alana-Paterson_4939-2-1024x683

Photo: Alana Paterson

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.

Photo: Amber Bracken

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.

Photo: Amber Bracken

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.

Sara Hylton Narwhal 08202020-36-1024x683

Photo: Sara Hylton

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.

daimen-hardie-community-forests-international-1024x683-photo-by-Darren-Calabrese

Photo: Darren Calabrese

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.

City of Surrey

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.

Photo: Darren Calabrese

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?

Photo: Alex Harris / Raincoast

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.

Photo: Sara Hylton / The Narwhal

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.

Photo: Greenpeace

‘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’.

Photo: Amber Bracken

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.

Photo: Garth Lenz

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?

Photo: Garth Lenz

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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