Vast stretches of Canada's boreal forest are undisturbed by development, but they are not quiet. Every spring, they ring with the song of billions of birds. Thirty percent of North America's songbirds and 40 percent of its waterfowl migrate to the boreal to rear their young. They come here because the forest offers wilderness on a grand scale: here they find vast woods in which to build nests. Woodpeckers build theirs in burned snags. Cape May warblers like the dark crowns of mature spruce trees. Yellow warblers, on the other hand, prefer bright green saplings and leafy bushes. They and almost 230 other species of land birds find what they need in the boreal forest.

Until recently the wildest stretch of the forest along the border of Manitoba and Ontario was in danger of losing these nesting grounds to new hydropower development. But in May 2005, the Manitoba government announced that it will seek alternative routes for proposed hydro transmission lines that would have cut through the forest. Yet until the government grants permanent protection to the region, the threat of transmission lines, roads, mining and logging remains. Indeed, Manitoba Hydro's president has said that the recent decision concerning transmission lines does not mean that the company is ruling out development in the region, only that it is looking at other options.

NRDC has joined other environmental groups and indigenous communities in an urgent campaign to save this pristine forest region. Staving off industrial development may hang on an ambitious proposal that would create a United Nations World Heritage Site within the heart of the boreal. Encompassing 10.6 million acres in Manitoba and Ontario, the site would include two provincial parks in addition to the traditional territories of involved First Nations. The Canadian government, and more recently the Manitoba government, have endorsed this visionary proposal, but in the meantime the Manitoba government is delaying protection for traditional First Nations territories within the boreal. Without this protection, the proposed World Heritage Site may be sacrificed before conservation planning can be completed.

Urge the Manitoba government to protect First Nations lands in the boreal.