Creating opportunity in our northern communities while fighting climate change.
Northern British Columbia in Canada has been devastated by the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic. Over 130,000 square kilometers of pine forest has been destroyed; an area larger than Greece. There are a number of causes of the epidemic, most notably considerably warmer winters and dryer summers.
Northern Canadian economies have traditionally been resource based. The loss of the forest resource creates significant economic and social stress in our communities.
In 2007, our group of employee-owned and operated businesses came together to look for new ways to keep our communities viable in the wake of the pine beetle epidemic. If the problem had been, in part, created by climate change, what new opportunities might also have been created by climate change? It was immediately apparent that our specialists in silviculture and forest ecology had the skills, knowledge, resources and relationships to create the highest quality forestry carbon offsets available in the market.
To help create economic diversification and new opportunity in our northern communities, Borealis Offsets was formed in February, 2008. We began development of the McPhee Creek Project a month later.
In late 2008, we developed an international marketing partnership with EcoSecurities, the industry leading company in the business of sourcing, developing and trading emission reduction credits. Borealis’ McPhee Creek Project became the first forestry project showcased on EcoSecurties’ ProjectNet, an online directory of over 40 international carbon offset projects.