From space, the boreal forest appears as a near-continuous pine-green band stretching across the Northern Hemisphere, just beneath the Arctic — from Europe through Russia and Asia, and again across Alaska and Canada. Up close, the forest resolves into a patchwork of species. Conifers like spruce, pine, and fir dominate, while deciduous trees such as birch, aspen, and poplar appear in warmer regions. It is easy to imagine the boreal as distant, austere, and resilient: rows of looming trees growing slowly over long winters and short summers. The numbers reinforce that sense of scale and endurance. The boreal covers roughly 17% of Earth’s land surface and stores about one-third of the carbon held in forests worldwide. While some of this carbon is stored in the boreal’s large trees, much of it lies below ground in soils, where cold, waterlogged conditions slow how quickly fungi and bacteria decompose organic matter, allowing it to accumulate over centuries. Today, industry and forest managers are converting large areas of this forest into managed stands, harvesting trees for lumber and …