Ecologists in Quebec are welcoming a new provincial decree that creates 23 protected nature reserves containing 18,220 kilometres of land.

The provincial government announced it will institute the protected nature zones to shield them from any industrial activity.

Much of the land is in southern Quebec and includes boreal forests, lakes and other ecosystems.

The announcement increases Quebec's protected land to six per cent of its total territory, a vast improvement for the province, said environmentalist Harvey Locke.

"This is a good day for conservation," said the spokesman for the Canadian Boreal Initiative.

Natural Resources Minister Claude Béchard said the nature zones will be guarded by tough rules that prohibit any building, cutting or other forestry activity.

What is allowed on the land will be limited to "some specific actions, if it is for protection," he said Wednesday.

The move makes business sense as well, the minister said, because of changing demands in the European softwood lumber market.

More and more, those demands are for wood products that come from forestry operations that meet a series of certification requirements, including preserving natural forest conditions, maintaining adequate conservation zones and exercising sustainable harvesting rates.

"If you want to … sell wood there [in Europe], you have to be under certification," Béchard said, and protecting more nature areas will help Quebec producers do that.

Quebec still trails British Columbia and Alberta in terms of percentage of protected land.

With files from Tim Duboyce