A new study casts doubt on Canada’s claims of sustainable forest management and sparks concerns about the future of its boreal forests, just as industry eyes its potential as a resource for affordable housing development.

The Canadian government’s “notion of sustainability” is tied mainly to “maximizing wood production and ensuring the regeneration of commercially desirable tree species following logging,” write researchers led by a group from Griffith University in Australia, in a recent study measuring the impacts of logging on boreal ecosystems and caribou habitat in the managed forest zones of Ontario and Quebec.

From the government’s perspective, the commercial logging of natural forests does not constitute either deforestation or degradation “so long as the forest remains dominated by naturally regenerating, commercially valued tree species and the wood supply is sustained,” the researchers note.

But the implications for biodiversity are devastating, they add. “This study starkly shows that where logging has occurred, there are fundamental characteristics of the forest that have not returned,” said Jennifer Skene, climate policies analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which helped finance the research.

[Disclosure: Several years ago, The Energy Mix Publisher Mitchell Beer worked as a consultant to NRDC’s boreal forest project.]

The team of researchers found that 140,000 square kilometres of the Canadian boreal forest have been logged since 1976—an area roughly the size of New York State, and about 28% of the total study area. Another 212,000 square kilometres of older forest with no records of logging “occurs as a vast scatter of patches embedded within a highly anthropically disturbed forest landscape structure in terms of both species composition and spatial configuration.”

Only eight patches remain that meet the threshold of more than 500 square kilometres that defines Intact Forest Landscapes (IFLs), which are important for preserving biodiversity and ecological processes.

Of 21 possible ranges identified for caribou habitat, two are at risk of being disturbed to an extent of no longer being able to support caribou, 16 are considered at high risk, and three at very high risk, the study found.

The results are “shocking,” Peter Wood, a forest resources management lecturer at the University of British Columbia who was not involved in the study, told the New York Times. The study highlights “what is at stake as we focus our logging on some of these older and more intact areas,” he added.

Unlike other forested areas, deforestation in Canada’s northern areas is driven less by industry linked to agriculture. It is the systematic harvesting and replanting of trees that has caused a high level of forest degradation. Compared to older tree stands, younger forested areas are less ecologically robust and more susceptible to disease, the Times explains.

Younger trees also store less carbon, and forest degradation in these areas poses a threat to naturally stored carbon that, if released, will further contribute to climate change. The future of Canada’s forest management will thus greatly influence the country’s ability to meet its climate targets.

But Canada’s forestry sector says northern Ontario’s forests could play a major role in addressing the housing affordability crisis in Canada.

Whereas the wood industry in provinces like British Columbia supplies 90% of low-rise condo apartments, in Ontario that share is only about 20%. Industry professionals see this as an opportunity for further development amidst the growing demand for housing.

In November, a publication [pdf] by the Forest Products Association of Canada and the Canadian Wood Council (CWC) touted wood-based housing systems and mass-timber construction as essential to meet housing demand. Citing a report by the Smart Prosperity Institute, the Association said meeting Canada’s 2030 housing demand would require 18.8 billion board feet of softwood lumber, or roughly 79% of Canada’s current production capacity.

To encourage contractors, engineers, and architects to build with wood, the Liberal government spent $855,000 to extend the CWC’s ‘Wood WORKS!’ program for two more years, CTV News reported last July.