Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees, but there is one forest that we need to see more clearly: the boreal forest of North America that covers much of Canada and Alaska.

For those who need numbers to spark action, check out these facts, courtesy of Audubon (www.audubon.org) and the Boreal Songbird Initiative (www.borealbirds.org):

At 2.3 million square miles, the boreal forest is the largest land-based storehouse of carbon, and larger than the remaining Brazilian Amazon rain forest.

The world’s largest populations of caribou and wolves live here.

The boreal forest also can be found in Russia and Scandinavia. Only 5 percent remains in the latter.

During spring migration, up to 3 billion birds fly through the U.S. to breed there; up to 5 billion fly south each fall. Many are migrants that winter in the southern U.S., Mexico, West Indies, or Central or South America. The U.S. is the largest wintering grounds for boreal birds with 60 percent of the migrants wintering here.

Eighty percent of North American waterfowl species, 63 percent of the finch species and 53 percent of warbler species breed in the boreal forest. For nearly 100 species, 50 percent or more of the breeding populations occur in the boreal.

Many rapidly declining bird species depend on the boreal forest.

The fear is that oil, gas, timber, mining and hydroelectric pressures threaten the irreplaceable ecosystem. About 10 percent of the North American boreal forest is protected; more than 30 percent has been earmarked for development. Decisions soon will be made that affects much of the rest of the acreage, and strip-mining is on the table.

Are you comfortable watching one bird species after another fail? No? Then let’s, for a moment, quit pointing fingers at corporations and own up to our part in the play.

Our consumer choices help drive logging, mining and oil exploration. The second-largest oil deposit in the world is in Canada, and those Alberta oil sands include millions of acres of boreal forest ecosystem.

The U.S. buys more oil from Canada than any other country, which links us without question to what happens in that ecosystem. But it’s not just oil-drilling with the potential to create havoc. Right now most of us are wiping our noses, lips and bums with paper products that were once trees in the boreal forest.

Fortunately, there’s a better way, and it requires none of our time — and, mercifully, very little of our money.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (www.nrdc.org), if every household in the U.S. replaced one 500-sheet roll of virgin fiber toilet paper with a 100-percent recycled one, we could save 423,900 trees. Replace one roll of 70-sheet virgin fiber paper towels with a 100-percent recycled one and save 544,000 trees; replace one package of 250-count virgin fiber napkins with a 100-percent recycled one and save 1 million trees.

Staggering, isn’t it? And that’s not counting tissues for our noses.

Yes, it costs a tiny bit more. But as more of us purchase the recycled versions of nose-lip-and-bum wipes, the cost will come down.

And it’s such a simple act.

Attention, captains:The new law requiring boat operators to pass a boating safety education course and carry a Washington state boater education card in order to pilot a boat in state waters is about to be enforced.

Beginning Jan. 1, boat operators age 12 to 20 will be required to have a card when operating a motorboat of 15 hp or more; the rule will be phased in through 2014. Boaters born before Jan. 1, 1955, are exempt from this law.

On Jan. 1, 2009, the age group required to have a card will be 25 years old and younger; on Jan. 1, 2010, 30 years and younger, etc.

For information about the mandatory program, go to www.parks.wa.gov/?boating or call 360-902-8844.

Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.