there's a forest belt that wraps around the entire northern hemisphere — from alaska through canada, across scandinavia, and through siberia. it covers 1.2 billion hectares. it's called the boreal forest, or taiga.
most people have never thought about it. but it's been quietly doing the most important job on the planet: storing carbon.
the boreal forest holds 32% of all carbon stored on land. not in the trees — in the soil beneath them. the cold, wet conditions slow decomposition. organic matter accumulates for thousands of years. the permafrost locks it in.
to put that in scale: boreal soils contain about 1,672 petagrams of carbon. global fossil fuel emissions in 2023 were about 11 petagrams. the boreal floor holds 150 years of human emissions.
and it's starting to release.
the flip
in 2024, researchers documented something alarming: the boreal forest's ability to absorb carbon has dropped by 36% in recent decades. fires are burning hotter and more frequently. permafrost is thawing. insects are expanding their range as winters warm.
between 2016 and 2022, northern forests shifted from net carbon sinks to net emitters — releasing more carbon than they absorbed. the arctic tundra has already crossed that threshold. the boreal forest is next in line.
when permafrost thaws, it doesn't just release CO2. it releases methane — a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent over 20 years. and unlike tree carbon, which can regrow, permafrost carbon took millennia to accumulate. once released, it's gone.
this isn't a future scenario. it's happening now.
why no one talks about it
the boreal forest spans russia, canada, alaska, and scandinavia. it's remote. it's cold. it's not photogenic the way rainforests are. there are no charismatic megafauna campaigns. no celebrity ambassadors.
it also doesn't fit neatly into carbon accounting frameworks. soil carbon is hard to measure. permafrost dynamics are complex. fire emissions aren't always attributed correctly.
so it stays invisible — the largest land-based carbon reservoir on earth, quietly destabilizing while attention goes elsewhere.
what's actually at stake
if the boreal forest flips from sink to source, the math on climate change gets much harder.
right now, land ecosystems absorb about 30% of human carbon emissions. forests, soils, and vegetation act as a buffer — buying time for decarbonization. but that buffer is weakening.
a 2024 study warned that natural carbon sinks may be approaching collapse. the boreal forest isn't just one system among many — it's the largest. if it goes, the entire carbon budget recalculates.
every climate model, every net-zero pathway, every corporate carbon offset assumes the boreal forest will keep doing what it's been doing. it might not.
what protection looks like
the boreal forest can't be "fixed" in any simple way. it's too vast, too remote, too geopolitically divided. but some things help:
- fire management: indigenous-led burning practices and early detection systems can reduce catastrophic fire severity
- permafrost preservation: limiting surface disturbance and industrial activity in permafrost zones
- old-growth protection: mature boreal forests store more carbon than young ones — logging releases centuries of accumulation
- reforestation with diversity: mixed-species planting increases resilience and long-term carbon storage by 15-30%
- monitoring: satellite systems like Landsat and ICESat-2 are finally providing real data on boreal carbon dynamics
most of this requires coordination across national borders. russia, canada, and the nordic countries would need to work together. in the current geopolitical climate, that's difficult.
but difficult isn't impossible. and the stakes justify the effort.
making it matter financially
the core problem is familiar: the boreal forest provides incalculable value, but that value shows up nowhere in economic systems.
no one pays for carbon storage. no one compensates indigenous communities for stewarding land that benefits everyone. the forest's contribution to climate stability is priced at zero — so it gets traded away for timber, mining rights, and pipeline corridors.
ensurance addresses this by creating financial instruments tied to ecosystem protection. the boreal forests coin generates trading fees that flow to the boreal-forests.ensurance pool, funding real conservation work.
it's not a solution by itself. but it's a signal — a way of saying this matters, and the current price is wrong.
what you can do
- understand the stakes — the boreal forest isn't a side issue. it's central to whether climate math adds up.
- support indigenous-led stewardship — first nations and indigenous communities have managed these lands for millennia
- question carbon offsets — many offset schemes assume stable forests. ask what happens if they flip.
- hold the coin — boreal forests ensurance directs capital toward protecting the world's largest land carbon sink
the forest has been doing its job for 10,000 years. the question is whether we'll let it keep doing it.