Table 21C.1. Annual change in area (1000 ha) of land by land use and terrestrial ecozone in Canada.
Terrestrial ecozone Land Use Total
Industrial Forestry Agriculture Conservation Infrastructure Settlement Recreation National defence Unknown Other1
Taiga Plains 0.49 99.94 -1.99 0.67 0.89 0.01 -584.79 - 487.02 - 2.24
Taiga Shield 11.05 -38.76 - 6.24 -0.08 0.00 0.00 0.00 13.31 - -8.24
Boreal Shield 122.69 -1 087.29 -7.49 639.61 -199.56 -16.41 241.43 -0.06 294.03 - -13.05
Atlantic Maritime -3.29 -14.56 0.57 57.24 -55.30 6.33 7.62 -0.27 0.17 - -1.48
Mixedwood Plains -0.27 9.51 -1.01 4.84 -20.38 5.04 -0.54 0.21 -0.30 - -2.90
Boreal Plains 62.72 30.26 13.55 29.84 -8.69 3.77 -303.70 1.67 169.81 - -0.77
Prairies 67.28 19.00 59.59 6.98 -98.21 13.21 -2.90 0.04 -111.64 - -46.66
Taiga Cordillera 0.32 - - -15.36 0.04 -0.01 36.99 - -21.31 - 0.66
Boreal Cordillera 17.07 -23.46 -1.11 15.43 -1.72 0.95 -1 330.01 - 1 324.50 - 1.65
Pacific Maritime 0.50 -182.51 -1.50 64.71 4.52 -0.07 -1 042.99 - 1 167.95 - 10.62
Montane Cordillera 1.44 680.63 23.52 226.85 9.60 -18.79 -2 588.61 -3.31 1 671.70 - 3.04
Hudson Plains 0.00 94.04 0.12 -102.54 -0.09 0.10 - - 13.93 - 5.55
Canada 280.00 -413.19 84.26 934.49 -368.98 -5.88 -5 567.50 -1.71 5 009.17 - -49.34
Source: Canada's National Forest Inventory, combined remeasured (2007-2017) and projected (2006-2017 with NFI projection system) data, where plots with strong indicators of artificial change are removed. Artificial change between successive plot measurements can be caused by using different image sources, incorporating vintage baseline inventories, and updating photo-interpretation techniques (Version 3.1, November 2025) (http://nfi.nfis.org)
Note: The Arctic ecozones (Arctic Cordillera, Northern Arctic, Southern Arctic), and the Taiga Plains and Hudson Plains ecozones located in Nunavut, are not inventoried. These non-inventoried areas total 262,189.89 thousand ha.
1 Missing, unknown or other land uses.