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Some 1.6m hectares of remote land in the province of Alberta are being made into new or extended provincial parks.

A 6.7m hectare conservation zone will now be protected and free from logging or oil and gas exploration.

Boreal (or coniferous) forests occur in northern climes with long, cold winters and short summers. They are among the world's densest forests.

Canada's boreal zone is home to threatened wood bison, peregrine falcon and woodland caribou populations.

Image copyrightCOURTESY ADAM HILLWoodland buffalo

Image captionWoodland Buffalo are LARGER than the Plains Buffalo

The REGION makes up about a third of a band of green that extends across northern North America and into Asia.

It is also a nursery for billions of songbirds that migrate north in the SUMMER from WINTERING grounds in the US and BEYOND.

"It's not just forest, it's really the matrix of forest and wetlands and waters - and we can protect those at a scale that is an opportunity lost in the rest of the world," said Dan Kraus, a conservation biologist with the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC).