22 August 2025 | Article

Accountability or advertising?

Each year, Canada publishes The State of Canada’s Forests as part of its formal commitment under the Montreal Process. The report is produced by Natural Resources Canada. In response, independent experts release an annual counter-assessment, A Critical Review of Canada’s State of the Forests. This article highlights the main findings of the review, many of which resonate from a Swedish perspective.

You can find the full review in Accountability… or Advertising? A Critical Review of Canada’s State of the Forests Report. Much of the analysis, arguments, and criticism are familiar. If you replace the specific Canadian terms with their Swedish equivalents, the report could just as well have been published in Sweden. The same sad story.

A Global Commitment

Canada is one of 12 member countries in the Montreal Process Working Group, a coalition responsible for 90% of the world’s temperate and boreal forests and half of the global roundwood production. The Montreal Process developed 7 criteria and 54 indicators to help countries describe, monitor, and report on the state of their forests, especially temperate and boreal ones. Through this membership, Canada has committed to tracking progress on sustainable forest management by reporting annually in The State of Canada’s Forests (SOF).

A Selective Picture

The official SOF report only presents a handful of the agreed indicators – mainly those that make Canada’s forestry look good. Economic results are highlighted, along with statistics on natural events like fires or storms. At the same time, the impact of industrial logging and the combined pressures on ecosystems are played down. Positive stories, such as maple syrup production or small-scale forestry, are used to suggest that everything is well managed.

Reality on the Ground

Despite assurances in Canada’s SOF that all is well, major challenges remain. Caribou habitat is left unprotected in Quebec and Ontario, breaking federal endangered species law. Ontario has also weakened its own protections and rejected Indigenous-led conservation. In British Columbia, unsustainable logging has devastated old-growth forests, fueling timber shortages and even worsening floods. Logging continues to expand into threatened caribou ranges in Alberta, while Quebec considers loosening environmental safeguards. In Eastern Canada, Acadian forests have been so heavily altered that bird populations are in steep decline.

On top of this, increasingly severe wildfires combine with industrial pressures, reducing the forests’ ability to recover and stay resilient.

Bigger Questions

The counter-report argues that Canada is failing to live up to its international promises. It raises tough questions: Who really has a say in forestry laws? Who benefits the most? And who carries the costs – in lost biodiversity, weaker climate protection, and threats to Indigenous rights?

Finally, the experts stress that Canada’s reporting system is too narrow. It doesn’t deal with conflicts over land, Indigenous demands for free and informed consent, or the fact that many communities reject industrial forestry altogether.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

This article builds on fightCOtwo’s previous analysis of long-term boreal forest conservation and the methodological requirements for high-quality, certified carbon and biodiversity projects.