Value-added wood products in Ontario
The province’s forest industry is supported mainly by the Northern Ontario boreal forest. These are the expansive and renewable resources that are drawn upon for the creation of value-added products. The geographical area covers 690,000 square kilometers which is roughly 17% of all Canadian forests as well as 2% of the world’s forests. It is estimated that the Ontario landscape is covered by roughly 85 billion trees. The forest industry in Ontario brings in about $10.8 billion in revenue per year. Sixty percent of Ontario’s forest industry is recognized as value-added wood products. In 2005, Ontario’s manufacturing of cabinets and furniture represented $2.2 billion.
Boreal woodland caribou
Since the 1940s the decline of "Rangifer tarandus caribou" range occupancy in Ontario has been recognized. There are two populations of woodland caribou, the forest-tundra ecotype and the sedentary forest-dwelling ecotype. The boreal woodland caribou population (forest-dwelling), estimated at approximately 3,000, make up approximately one-quarter of Ontario’s woodland caribou, was designated as threatened in 2000 (and likely to become endangered if limiting factors are not reversed) by the Federal Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada and by the Province of Ontario. The migratory forest-tundra woodland caribou, numbering about 20,000 in 2007 is found in northern Ontario, on the coastal plains south of Hudson Bay was not considered to be endangered.