Old Growth | Earthroots

Wilderness & Watersheds

At Earthroots, we work to protect Ontario's most significant ecosystems. Conducting rigorous assessments and advocating for science-based conservation.

Old Growth

Temagami

Old-Growth

Ontario's Old-Growth Pine Forests

Old-growth pine forests are not merely collections of trees, they are functioning ecosystems that have persisted for millennia. They remind us that the value of nature is not limited to what we can harvest or consume, but lies in its continuity, its resilience, and its ability to sustain life far beyond a human lifetime.

What Are Old Growth Pine Forests?

Old-growth red and white pine forests are living legacies that take centuries to form and cannot be recreated within a single human lifetime. They are not defined by a single age or size of trees but by a continuum of slow ecological change.

These ancient forests are full of life and structure, with layered canopies, trees of all ages, and standing dead pines that provide food and shelter for wildlife. Towering white pines can grow for 250 to 400 years, while red pines often reach 200 to 300 years, with trunks as wide as a person is tall. On the ground, massive fallen trees slowly return nutrients to the soil, becoming rich habitats for mosses, fungi, and countless small creatures.

Old growth also supports a remarkable variety of life, from tiny lichens to eagles and black bears, all relying on the unique features these forests provide. For thousands of years, natural fires every few generations helped keep these pine ecosystems thriving, clearing space for new growth while leaving the biggest trees standing strong.

Once lost, however, these extraordinary forests cannot simply be replanted or recreated. Their structure, history, and ecological richness are truly irreplaceable.

Biodiversity Hotspots and Genetic Heritage

Old-growth forests are living archives of biodiversity. They hold the evolutionary memory of millennia. They shelter rare lichens, fungi, plants, and wildlife, including threatened and endangered species, that depend on complex habitats only centuries of growth can create. In Ontario and across the world, old growth is increasingly rare, yet there is still no legal requirement to protect it.

Biodiversity Reservoirs

Complex microhabitats support species that cannot survive in managed forests.

Genetic Lineages

Ancient trees encode resilience to drought, pests, and disease. Traits vital for adaptation in a warming climate.

Water and Soil Protection

Extensive root systems filter water, stabilize soils, and regulate watersheds.

Ecologically and genetically old growth is a bequest to the present age given to the forest landscape from the evolutionary experience of past millennia. Within that bequest is embedded not only the dominant large living trees emerging from surrounding, younger mixed species forest, but also the dead standing snags, the downed coarse woody debris and the vast array of very specialized lifeforms colonizing the complex mat of the forest floor.

The genetic characteristics of the surviving giant trees encode the survival information from conditions 400 years ago when those trees were germinated but also, the genes gathered in the whole forest biological community over the 10,000 years since the land emerged from glaciation. This is significant because, if such an ecological feature is cut by modern forestry techniques, it will never be seen again.

Logging these systems is ecological erasure. Once their genetic legacy is gone, it cannot be replaced.

A Natural Climate Solution

Old-growth pine forests are not just beautiful, they are critical to global climate stability.

Old growth red and white pine forest stands retain a significant inventory of sequestered atmospheric carbon dioxide which has accumulated over millennia. The living trees contain a huge biomass of heartwood, foliage and other living tissue but that is not the most substantial reservoir of bound carbon. Giant standing snags and downed logs composed of carbon-based organic matter fixed in centuries past decompose slowly in the closed forest environment releasing CO2 very gradually over many decades. The largest stock of detained greenhouse gas resides in the forest soil, duff, litter and the coarse woody debris that accumulates on the forest floor.

Harvesting old growth disrupts ecosystem structure and function and results in the release over a period of weeks or months of substantial amounts of the carbon that has been accumulating in these stands. The large amount of carbon in the soil component is exposed to oxidation and accumulated dead woody debris rapidly decomposes on the surface of the harvested landscape along with the harvesting residuals, all of which release CO2.

Replacing old growth with plantations or regrowth cannot compensate for this loss. It will take centuries for regenerating forests to re-sequester the carbon released when old growth is cut, centuries we do not have in the fight against climate change.

Cultural and Historical Significance

For Indigenous Peoples, white pine is more than a tree. It is a symbol of peace, governance, and connection. These forests are home to sacred sites, ancient travel routes, and cultural teachings that endure today.

For settlers, pine was once a driver of colonization. By the late 1800s, industrial logging had destroyed nearly all of Ontario's merchantable old-growth pine. The few stands that remain today are survivors of relentless extraction. Protecting them now is an act of cultural respect and ecological justice.

The Movement to Protect Canada's Old-Growth Pine Forests

Once stretching across millions of hectares in eastern North America, ancient stands of red and eastern white pine have been reduced to fragments by centuries of logging, mining, and settlement. By the late 20th century, less than 1% of Ontario's original white pine forest remained standing.

The fight to protect old-growth pine in Canada began in Temagami, Ontario, in the 1980s. Local opposition to logging roads and clearcutting brought international attention to the rare pine forests of the region. In 1986, the Temagami Wilderness Society (now Earthroots) was formed, and soon after launched the Tall Pines Project, the first comprehensive surveys of old-growth red and white pine in northeastern North America. These studies (Quinby 1988–1996) defined the ecological characteristics of old growth and documented just how little remained.

The campaign culminated in the Red Squirrel Road blockades of 1989, one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in Canadian environmental history. These blockades brought Indigenous leaders, conservationists, and concerned citizens together to defend the ancient pine forests of Temagami. The movement pressured the Ontario government to halt logging plans in the Obabika Lake old-growth forest and laid the foundation for stronger conservation policy.

Policy Recognition and Protection

The activism of the late 1980s and early 1990s led to a major breakthrough: in 1994, the Ontario Environmental Assessment Board formally recognized old-growth forest protection as a legitimate government responsibility. This marked a turning point, not only for Ontario but for old-growth protection efforts across Canada.

As a result, new policies were developed to identify, inventory, and set aside old-growth stands from industrial logging. Temagami's Obabika Old-Growth Forest became the largest protected stand of old-growth red and white pine in the world, safeguarding thousands of hectares for future generations.

Despite these hard-won victories, Canada's old-growth pine forests remain under pressure. In areas like Wolf Lake, the world's largest remaining stand of ancient red pine, mining leases continue to block permanent protection. Across Ontario, logging and weak legislation leave many old growth stands vulnerable.

Wolf Lake: The World's Largest Ancient Red Pine Forest

Wolf Lake is an irreplaceable ecological and cultural landmark, a living snapshot of what the forests of eastern North America once looked like. The area contains the largest known contiguous ancient Red Pine (Pinus resinosa Aiton) forest in the world (Quinby 1996). Located just northeast of Lake Wanapitei, near Sudbury, Ontario, Wolf Lake is an ecological treasure of quartzite cliffs, sparkling blue lakes, and towering red pines, some as old as 300 years. This 1,600-hectare old-growth forest is more than three times the size of the next largest remnant of this once widespread ecosystem, making it globally significant.

Before European settlement, ancient Red Pine forests stretched across an estimated 1.8 million hectares of eastern North America. Today, only 1.2% of their original range remains (Quinby 1996; Noss 1995). In the Sudbury Forest Management Unit, just 0.3% of the landscape is old-growth Red Pine (Dingwall 2011), while in the neighbouring Nipissing Forest Management Unit, that number falls to a mere 0.02% (Thauvette 2011). The rarity of these forests makes Wolf Lake not only unique, but irreplaceable.

The ecological significance of Wolf Lake was recognized in the late 1990s through the Lands for Life planning process, which led to Ontario's Living Legacy Land Use Strategy. At the time, the provincial government committed to protecting Wolf Lake as a "park in waiting" once existing mining leases expired. Yet decades later, that protection has never come. Instead, in 2020, a new work permit was issued for mineral exploration, undermining public trust and exposing Wolf Lake to renewed threats.

Earthroots, in collaboration with the Save Wolf Lake Coalition and regional allies, continues to push the Ontario government to keep its promise and grant Wolf Lake the permanent protection it deserves. With less than 2% of ancient Red Pine forests left across their range, safeguarding Wolf Lake is not just a local fight, it is a responsibility of global importance.

Its protection would secure the world’s largest remaining ancient Red Pine ecosystem, help Canada meet its biodiversity and climate goals, and honour decades of public advocacy.

Earthroots' Commitment

Despite their rarity, old-growth pine forests remain threatened by logging, mining, road building, and fire suppression. Forestry plans continue to treat them as "overripe crops" to be harvested, ignoring their irreplaceable ecological and climate value. From the blockades of Temagami to ongoing campaigns, citizens have shown that these forests hold value far beyond timber. They are ecological strongholds, cultural touchstones, and natural climate solutions.

Protecting what remains of Canada's old-growth pine is not only an environmental priority but a moral obligation, to honour the generations who fought to save them and to ensure these ancient forests continue to stand for generations to come.

For nearly four decades, Earthroots has worked to protect Ontario's last remaining old-growth pine forests by:

Campaigning against industrial logging in ancient stands.
Supporting Indigenous-led stewardship and Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs).
Advocating for permanent legislative protection for all remaining old growth.
Educating the public on the ecological, genetic, cultural, and climate importance of these forests.

Ontario's old-growth pine forests are living testaments to resilience, cultural heritage, and climate hope. They are not just trees, they are our shared inheritance. Protecting them is both a local responsibility and a global obligation.

If we lose them now, they will not return for centuries. If we protect them,

they will stand for generations to come.