Facts About Our Forests

Forests are all around us. They exist in grand expanses from the spruce dominated North to the maple and oak forests of the south. Ontarians must respect all their trees; urban and rural, planted and wild, seedling and old timber, and in stands.

Forest statistics have been published since the 1920's. The Forest Resources of Ontario publication provides a comprehensive overview of Ontario's forests. Statistics describing the area of land and water, forest types, and the distribution of tree species across the province are summarized in the form of tables, charts, and maps. 

Facts

Most of the land in Ontario is owned by the people of Ontario, in the form of Crown and Park land and water. 

There are four forest regions in Ontario:

• • Hudson bay lowlands (subarctic barrens) - contains 19% of Ontario's forests 
  • boreal forest, the largest forest region in Ontario and Canada - contains 58% of Ontario's forests
  • Great Lakes-St. Lawrence - contains 19% of Ontario's forests 
  • deciduous forest (Southern Ontario) - contains 3% of Ontario's forests
• Ontario has approximately 85 billion trees
• 66.0% of Ontario is forest (71.1 million ha)
• 80.8% of Ontario’s forests are on Crown forest (public forest lands) (57.5 million ha)
• 9.0% of Ontario’s forests are within existing and proposed Parks and Protected areas (6.4 million ha)
• 51.6% of the forest in the boreal region are managed by the Crown 
• 44.2% of the forest in the boreal is unavailable for harvest
• Less than one-half of 1% of the forest in the boreal region is harvested annually 
• The average age of Area of the Undertaking (AOU) forests have increased from 73 years old in 1996, to 79 in 2001 and 82 years old in 2006 and remained at 83 years old in 2011
• 55.8% of the AOU is softwood or coniferous forest types
• 25.5% of the AOU is hardwood or deciduous forest types
• 18.7% of the AOU is mixedwood forest types
• Ontario’s most common tree is the black spruce (37.3% of total provincial growing stock), followed by poplar (20.8%), and jack pine (11.7%)
• The most common provincial forest types are conifer upland and lowland, which are dominated by spruce, and make up 55.3% of the boreal forest

Proportion of forest compared to total land area

More comprehensive forest statistics are available in the following publications:

• Forest Resources of Ontario 2011
• State of the Forest Reports
• Annual Reports on Forest Management