Alberta Now Home To World's Largest Protected Boreal Forest

The largest contiguous protected boreal forest in the world is now found in northeastern Alberta. The creation and expansion of 5 provincial parks connected to the Wood Buffalo National Park create a protected area of more than 6.7 million hectares.

The 1.36 million hectare addition is the largest addition to the Alberta Parks system in history, and was executed in partnership with the Alberta government, the federal government, the Tallcree First Nation, Syncrude and the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

As of the 1.36 million hectare addition, 14.6% of Alberta will be protected land – up from 12.6%. This gives Alberta the highest percentage of protected land out of all other provinces with the exception of British Columbia, which protects 15.5%.