<P> About 1,400 communities within the Boreal region rely on resource industries for at least part of the livelihood and stability . Many of these communities were carved out of the forest to support a sawmill, pulp and paper mill, mine or railway maintenance facility . Boreal forestry activities support almost 400,000 direct and indirect jobs across Canada . Forestry, pulp and paper, mining, and oil and gas exploration and development are the largest industries along with tourism, trapping, recreation, light manufacturing and the services to support industry and communities . The forest products sector is one of Canada's largest export industries, representing approximately 3% of GDP, with about half of the annual wood harvest coming from the boreal forest . </P> <P> Roughly one quarter of the boreal forest is managed for industrial forestry . The remaining three - quarters is either in parks, conservation areas, model forests or is considered non-timber - productive, generally defined as unsuitable for managed forestry or inaccessible . As recently as 2003, it was estimated that the annual harvest in the boreal was about 7,500 square kilometres per year, equivalent to about 0.2% of the total Canadian boreal forest . The sharp downturn in the market for lumber because of the collapse of the housing market in the United States that began in 2006, coupled with import tariff and tax barriers, have knocked the bottom out of Canada's forest industry . In Ontario, Canada's most populous province, where most forestry activity is in the boreal, government statistics suggest that the harvest declined 18% from 2005 to 2006 . Given the high number of mill closings from 2005 onward, mostly in Ontario and Quebec, it is a trend that most likely persisted through 2007 and 2008 . Most of Canada's conventional onshore oil and gas production, including the rapidly expanding oil sands production in Alberta, is located in the boreal region as is Canada's largest uranium producing zone in northern Saskatchewan and Quebec's largest hydroelectric generating facilities in the La Grande watershed . </P> <P> About eighty percent of Canada's Aboriginal population resides in forested areas--including one million in over five hundred First Nations and Métis settlements in boreal zones . Of that amount, over 17,000 work in the forest products industry, mostly in silviculture and woodlands operations in the boreal and other forest regions . </P> <P> Since the early 1990s, a strong impetus has been created to focus on conserving Canada's boreal legacy and sustainably managing economic activity within the entire region . The Canadian boreal is largely intact and available for multiple uses like timber harvest, recreation and hunting . Forestry companies have come to adopt the management practices known as eco-system based management, which takes into consideration criteria and indicators for sustainability--social, economic and environmental . A number of key principles have come to underpin Canadian forestry practices as mandated by forestry legislation, including the obligation for forestry companies operating on public lands to fully regenerate all areas harvested for timber and to consult the public on the preparation of forest management / harvest plans submitted to the relevant provincial authorities . </P>

Which canadian province contains more than 3 of the world’s fresh water reserves