Ontario has protected half its boreal forest from mining and logging, a move local environmentalists say puts Manitoba to shame.

"That is astonishing. It's unbelievable," said Eric Reder, the Manitoba director of the Wilderness Committee. "They're talking about protecting 50 per cent of the boreal forest. We are desperately struggling to get to 8.6 per cent."

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced Monday that his province would protect 225,000 square kilometres of boreal forest in the province's far north, an area bigger than all the Maritime provinces put together. It's not clear yet exactly which parts of the vast forest will be protected, but the province pledged to work with First Nations on land-use plans much like Manitoba is doing.

Ontario's far northern boreal forest includes everything roughly north of Red Lake in the west and Moosonee in the east. On the Manitoba side, that parallels Atikaki Provincial Park and everything north of it, essentially most of the east side of Lake Winnipeg from Pauingassi and Bloodvein First Nations north to Hudson Bay.

Reder and Ron Thiessen, the Manitoba director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said Manitoba is falling behind despite some big talk about creating a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the east side of Lake Winnipeg. Logging and mining are off-limits in Atikaki -- one of the areas to be made a UNESCO site -- but it is still allowed in the southern reaches of the boreal forest and in many of its northern reaches, though little actually occurs because it's so remote.

"We are certainly being beaten to the punch by Ontario," Thiessen said.

But Conservation Minister Stan Struthers said the province is working with the 16 First Nations on the east side to create land management plans that have at their heart the protection of the pristine wilderness.