TED演讲 第15期:石油真正的代价(1)

The world's largest and most devastating

environmental and industrial project

is situated in the heart

of the largest and most intact forest in the world,

Canada's boreal forest.

It stretches right across northern Canada, in Labrador,

it's home to the largest remaining wild caribou herd

in the world, the George River caribou herd,

numbering approximately 400,000 animals.

Unfortunately, when I was there I couldn't find one of them,

but you have the antlers as proof.

All across the boreal, we're blessed with this

incredible abundance of wetlands.

Wetlands globally are one of the most endangered ecosystems.

They're absolutely critical ecosystems,

they clean air, they clean water,

they sequester large amounts of greenhouse gases,

and they're home to a huge diversity of species.

In the boreal, they are also the home where

almost 50 percent of the 800 bird species

found in North America migrate north to breed and raise their young.

In Ontario, the boreal marches down south

to the north shore of Lake Superior.

And these incredibly beautiful boreal forests

were the inspiration for some of the most famous art

in Canadian history, the Group of Seven were very inspired

by this landscape,

and so the boreal is not just a really key part of our

natural heritage,

but also an important part of our cultural heritage.

In Manitoba, this is an image from the east side of Lake Winnipeg,

and this is the home of the newly designated

UNESCO Cultural Heritage site.

In Saskatchewan, as across all of the boreal,

home to some of our most famous rivers,

an incredible network of rivers and lakes

that every school-age child learns about,

the Peace, the Athabasca, the Churchill here, the Mackenzie,

and these networks were the historical routes

for the voyageur and the coureur des bois,

the first non-Aboriginal explorers of northern Canada

that, taking from the First Nations people,

used canoes and paddled to explore

for a trade route, a Northwest Passage for the fur trade.

In the North, the boreal is bordered by the tundra,

and just below that, in Yukon,

we have this incredible valley, the Tombstone Valley.

And the Tombstone Valley is home to the Porcupine caribou herd.

Now you've probably heard about the Porcupine caribou herd

in the context of its breeding ground

in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Well, the wintering ground is also critical

and it also is not protected,

and is potentially, could be potentially, exploited

for gas and mineral rights.

The western border of the boreal in British Columbia

is marked by the Coast Mountains,

and on the other side of those mountains

is the greatest remaining temperate rainforest in the world,

the Great Bear Rainforest,

and we'll discuss that in a few minutes in a bit more detail.

All across the boreal, it's home for a huge

incredible range of indigenous peoples,

and a rich and varied culture.

And I think that one of the reasons why

so many of these groups have retained a link to the past,

know their native languages,

the songs, the dances, the traditions,

I think part of that reason is because of the remoteness,

the span and the wilderness

of this almost 95 percent intact ecosystem.