Again, thank you very much for the question, Ms. Duncan.
I'll break my comments into two pieces actually, if I can. Forest disturbance is an interesting term. We need to be very careful as we think about the disturbance in Canada's forests. There is an organization in the United States that went on Google Maps or looked at the disturbance using satellite imaging, and they concluded that there was a lot of disturbance in Canada's forests. What they neglect to clearly articulate is that much of that is forest fires and insects.
Natural disturbance happens in the boreal forest. As a matter of fact, it's part of the eco-cycle. Caribou like to be in forests of about 60 years of age—that is the ideal—where lichens grow and they can dig them out with their hoofs and eat them in the winter in dark, deep forests. The only way you get a large expanse of 60-year-old forest is if, 62 or 63 years earlier, you had burned it. That's the natural cycle of a boreal forest.
There are natural disturbances, and then there are human disturbances. When we say there is disturbance in Canada's boreal forest, we need to be careful that we differentiate between natural disturbance and human disturbance.
Last year the Canadian Forest Service published its annual report on disturbances in the boreal forest. I don't have it in front of me, but I recommend that the committee have a look at it. Fire, insects, oil and gas, hydroelectric dams—there are lots of disturbances. Canadian forest products companies are legally required to replace the forest cover that they harvest. Any harvesting that takes place by forestry companies is replaced so that there is a net zero reduction in forest cover by the forestry companies, except for the roads to get in and out.
Again I go back to my opening comments. We're very proud of our record of managing the boreal forest and managing all our forestry practices, as we are legally required to do.
The second point I would make is that the Forest Products Association of Canada has worked closely on the Species at Risk Act—