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LLOYD ROBERTSON: And in the midst of all the world's conflicts, we have some news tonight of a truce. Not in a shooting war, but a long running and bitter Canadian clash over a great national resource. It's the end of a fight between the forest products industry and environmentalists over Canada's boreal zone. That's the predominantly evergreen forest that covers more than a third of Canada's land area. Today the two adversaries said they are forming an alliance to benefit both the economy and the environment. The story from CTV's Daniele Hamamdjian.

DANIELE HAMAMDJIAN (Reporter): The confrontations are legendary.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: See what you get for trying to keep your job?

HAMAMDJIAN: The forest industry versus environmentalists. But in the case of these 70 million hectares of forests spanning from BC to Newfoundland, both sides are calling a truce in the battle of the boreal.

RICHARD BROOKS (Greenpeace): This is the largest of its kind anywhere on the planet.

HAMAMDJIAN: Nearly two dozen forestry companies will suspend logging and road building on roughly 40 percent of the land.

AVRIM LAZAR (Forest Products Association of Canada): There will be permanently protected areas within it. There will be areas in which we are going to continue operations.

HAMAMDJIAN: Nine environmental groups on their end will suspend boycott campaigns like this. A full page ad in the New York Times bashing lingerie giant Victoria's Secret for using pulp from endangered forests for their catalogues.

MELISSA FILION (Greenpeace): To be able to sell their products in the marketplace free of conflict, free of controversy.

HAMAMDJIAN: And freedom for what is at the heart of this pact, the iconic woodland caribou. There are a mere 36,000 remaining, and the decline of the caribou and the shrinking of the boreal go hand in hand. Saving the forest will ensure the survival of the herd.

DAVE COLES (Paperworkers Union President): It will be difficult for people to campaign against forest products in Canada when they see that the environmental movement is saying, okay, this makes sense.