By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Last week, the federal government announced Canada’s 2020 greenhouse gas emissions dropped, in part thanks to trees removing carbon from the atmosphere. However, environmentalists are quick to point out this calculation excludes a huge chunk of emissions from the logging industry.

Nearly seven megatonnes of CO2 were removed by the land use and forest sector, an amount that reduced the country’s total emissions by one per cent, according to the federal government. Environmental groups, however, say the sector’s true GHG emissions are underreported by a staggering amount — approximately 80 million tonnes of CO2 each year.