Managing Canada's Diverse Forests Canada, the second largest country in the world, stretches from the Pacific Ocean east to the Atlantic Ocean and north to the Arctic Ocean. Its 979 million hectares of land include 402 million hectares - or 40 % - that are forest or other wooded land. Under Canada's Constitution, the federal government and the provincial/territorial governments have specific roles in the care and governance of public forest areas, as well as sharing responsibility for matters such as environmental regulation and science and technology. Each province and territory has strict rules governing forest practices on its public land, with regulations and laws that were recently cited by an independent academic study as being among the most stringent on earth. These are backed by comprehensive compliance and enforcement regimes.