The Great Bear Rainforest
is a
temperate rain forest on the
Pacific coast of
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
comprising 6.4 million hectares.
It is part of the larger
Pacific temperate rainforest ecoregion, which is the largest coastal temperate rainforest in the world.
The Great Bear Rainforest was officially recognized by the
Government of British Columbia
The Government of British Columbia (french: Gouvernement de la Colombie-Britannique) is the body responsible for the administration of the Canadian province of British Columbia. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assum ...
in February 2016, when it announced an agreement to permanently protect 85% of the old-growth forested area from industrial
logging.
The forest was admitted to the
Queen's Commonwealth Canopy in September of the same year.
Geography
The size of the Great Bear Rainforest, also called the North and Central Coast land use planning area or the Central and North Coast LRMP area, is roughly . As part of the 2006 North and Central Coast Land Use Decision three new land use zones were created: Protected Areas; Biodiversity, Mining, and Tourism Areas (BMTAs); and Ecosystem-based Management Operating Areas (EBMs). As of 2009, approximately of the region has been designated as protected areas (in a form called conservancies), and as BMTAs. Commercial timber harvesting and commercial hydro-electric power projects are prohibited within BMTAs.
The Great Bear Rainforest extends from the
Discovery Islands
The Discovery Islands are a group of islands located at the northern end of the Salish Sea and the eastern end of Johnstone Strait, between Vancouver Island and the mainland coast of British Columbia, Canada.
Most of these islands have very fe ...
in the south to the BC-Alaska boundary in the north, it includes all offshore islands within this range except
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest by ...
and the archipelago of
Haida Gwaii
Haida Gwaii (; hai, X̱aaydag̱a Gwaay.yaay / , literally "Islands of the Haida people") is an archipelago located between off the northern Pacific coast of Canada. The islands are separated from the mainland to the east by the shallow Heca ...
.
Its northern end reaches up
Portland Canal
, image = Hyder Alaska IMG 0276 (22495379342).jpg
, alt =
, caption = Portland Canal from Hyder, Alaska
, image_bathymetry =
, alt_bathymetry =
, caption_bathymetry =
, location = Alaska and British Columbia
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, coordinates ...
to the vicinity of
Stewart. To the south it includes
Prince Rupert, most of
Douglas Channel, half of
Hawkesbury Island, and part of
Gardner Canal
The Gardner Canal is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast. Technically a side-inlet of the larger Douglas Channel, the Gardner Canal is still in length in its own right; total length of the waterways converging on the Douglas ...
.
Kitimat
Kitimat is a district municipality in the North Coast region of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of the Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine regional government. The Kitimat Valley is part of the most populous urban distr ...
is outside the region, to the east. Farther south, the region includes all of the coast west and south of the
Fiordland Conservancy
The Fiordland Conservancy, also known as the Fiordland Recreation Area formerly, and since also as the Fiordland Conservation Area, is a conservancy in British Columbia, Canada. It preserves a portion of the province's coast containing glacial f ...
,
Kitlope Heritage Conservancy Protected Area
The Kitlope Heritage Conservancy or Huchsduwachsdu Nuyem Jees ("source of milky blue waters") in the Haisla language, is a conservancy located on the Pacific coast of the province of British Columbia, Canada. It preserves the largest continuous ...
,
Tweedsmuir North and
Tweedsmuir South Provincial Parks—which includes
Dean Channel,
Burke Channel Burke Channel is a channel in the Central Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia, separating the south and east coasts of King Island from the mainland. It was first charted in 1792 by James Johnstone, one of George Vancouver's ...
,
Rivers Inlet
Rivers Inlet is a fjord in the Central Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia, its entrance off Fitz Hugh Sound, about southwest of the community of Bella Coola and about north of the northern tip of Vancouver Island and the ...
, and the communities of
Bella Bella,
Bella Coola, and
Hagensborg. The southern end of the region includes
Knight Inlet
Knight Inlet (Kwakʼwala: ''Tsawatti'') is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast, and the largest of the major inlets in the southern part of the Coast. It is fifth in sequence of the great saltwater inlets north from the 49t ...
and
Bute Inlet
, image = Bute Inlet.jpg
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, alt_bathymetry =
, caption_bathymetry =
, location = Strathcona RD, British Co ...
.
Ecology
The Great Bear Rainforest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unspoiled temperate rainforest left in the world.
The area is home to species such as
cougars,
wolves
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly un ...
,
salmon
Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus ''Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Oncorhy ...
,
grizzly bears, and the
Kermode ("spirit") bear, a unique subspecies of the
black bear
Black bear or Blackbear may refer to:
Animals
* American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species
* Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species
Music
* Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...
, in which one in ten cubs displays a
recessive white coloured coat.
The forest features 1,000-year-old
western red cedar
''Thuja plicata'' is an evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae, native to western North America. Its common name is western redcedar (western red cedar in the UK), and it is also called Pacific redcedar, giant arborvitae ...
and 90-metre
Sitka spruce.
Coastal temperate rainforests are characterized by their proximity to both ocean and mountains. Abundant rainfall results when the atmospheric flow of moist air off the ocean collides with mountain ranges. Much of the Pacific coastline of North America shares this climate pattern, including portions of
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
,
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
,
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
,
Oregon
Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...
, and
Northern California.
History
Campaign for protection
In the early 1990s environmentalists launched a large scale campaign to protect the
Clayoquot Sound
, image = Clayoquot Sound - Near Tofino - Vancouver Island BC - Canada - 08.jpg
, image_size = 260px
, alt =
, caption =
, image_bathymetry = Vancouver clayoquot sound de.png
, alt_bathyme ...
region of Vancouver Island. After years of conflict the British Columbia government announced a ban on clear-cutting in the Clayoquot rainforests and began a local planning process that incorporated First Nations of the area and independent scientists.
The Clayoquot Sound campaign became the model for the Great Bear Rainforest campaign. Techniques used at Clayoquot Sound were further developed and new approaches adopted, such as international marketing campaigns, improved mapping technologies, and the use of large-scale holistic ecosystem-based management models.
In 1997 the central and northern BC coastal region was renamed "Great Bear Rainforest" by a network of
ENGOs (environmental nongovernmental organizations), including
Greenpeace,
Sierra Club BC,
Pacific Wild, and
Stand.earth, for the purpose of galvanizing an international campaign for its protection. The name, which was chosen without consulting local residents, was by 2005 being used by many organizations, including news media outlets. As Maureen Gail Reed writes, "the emotive significance of such a name cannot be underestimated".
In May 2004, after years of conflict and negotiation, the various stakeholders agreed to recommend the BC government that about , about 33% of the Great Bear Rainforest, be put under some form of protection, and that new forms of ecosystem-based forestry be required throughout the rainforest. This fell short of the scientific recommendations, which had concluded that 44%–70% should be protected. The recommendation given to the BC government was a compromise solution agreed to by the many stakeholders after years of difficult negotiations.
The stakeholders include provincial and local governments; many
BC First Nations such as the
Heiltsuk
The Heiltsuk or Haíɫzaqv , sometimes historically referred to as ''Bella Bella'', are an Indigenous people of the Central Coast region in British Columbia, centred on the island community of Bella Bella. The government of the Heiltsuk people ...
and
Homalco
The Homalco First Nation (Comox language: χʷɛmaɬku, also spelled Xwémalhkwu) is a First Nations government located in Bute Inlet near the upper Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada. The Homalco are also known, with their neighbours th ...
; the ENGOs
Greenpeace,
ForestEthics,
Rainforest Action Network
Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is an environmental organization based in San Francisco, California, United States. The organization was founded by Randy "Hurricane" Hayes and Mike Roselle in 1985, and first gained national prominence with a gr ...
,
Pacific Wild, an
Sierra Club BC and forestry corporations such as
Canadian Forest Products
Canfor Corporation is an integrated forest products company based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
History
The company traces its roots to the late 1930s when brothers-in-law John G. Prentice and L.L.G. "Poldi" Bentley (surname changed from Bloch ...
,
Catalyst Paper Corporation
Catalyst Paper Corporation is a pulp and paper company based in Richmond, British Columbia. It operates five pulp mills and paper mills, producing a combined 1.8 million tonnes of paper and 491,000 tonnes of market pulp annually. The mills most ...
,
International Forest Products,
Western Forest Products
Western Forest Products Inc. is a Canadian lumber company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
History
Following its initial acquisition of the assets of Doman in 2004, the Company undertook a series of restructuring activities includin ...
; and many others.
On 7 February 2006 a comprehensive protection package was announced for the Great Bear Rainforest, which was defined to include the central and north coasts of BC and
Haida Gwaii
Haida Gwaii (; hai, X̱aaydag̱a Gwaay.yaay / , literally "Islands of the Haida people") is an archipelago located between off the northern Pacific coast of Canada. The islands are separated from the mainland to the east by the shallow Heca ...
(Queen Charlotte Islands). The Great Bear Rainforest Agreement included four key elements: rainforest protection, improved logging practices, the involvement of First Nations in decision making, and conservation financing to enable economic diversification. The final agreement banned logging in 33% of the Great Bear Rainforest and made a commitment to implement ecosystem-based forestry management for the entire Great Bear Rainforest by 2009.
The 2006 agreement between the BC government and a wide coalition of
conservationists,
loggers
Lumberjacks are mostly North American workers in the logging industry who perform the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to loggers in the era (before 1945 in the Unite ...
,
hunters, and
First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
established a series of conservancies stretching along the coast.
The proposed protected areas will contain , and another that is to be run under a management plan that is expected to ensure
sustainable forest management.
[
The ]Canadian government
The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown-in ...
announced on 21 January 2007 that it will spend CAD$30m for protection of this rainforest. This matches a pledge made previously by the British Columbia provincial government, as well as private donations of $60 million, making the total funding for the new reserve $120 million.
In the autumn of 2008, Greenpeace
Sierra Club BC
and ForestEthics (jointly known a
Rainforest Solutions Project
launched an online campaign titled, "Keep the Promise," to put public pressure on Gordon Campbell
Gordon Muir Campbell, (born January 12, 1948) is a retired Canadian diplomat and politician who was the 35th mayor of Vancouver from 1986 to 1993 and the 34th premier of British Columbia from 2001 to 2011.
He was the leader of the British Co ...
, then Premier of British Columbia
Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier.
A premier will normally be a head of govern ...
, to honour the Great Bear Rainforest agreement in its entirety. The groups were concerned certain aspects of the agreement, including implementation of ecosystem-based management (EBM), would not materialize in time for the government's own final implementation deadline of March 31, 2009.
Government recognition and protection
On February 1, 2016, Premier Christy Clark
Christina Joan Clark (born October 29, 1965) is a former Canadian politician who was the 35th premier of British Columbia (BC), from 2011 to 2017. Clark was the second woman to be premier of BC, after Rita Johnston in 1991, and the first female ...
announced an agreement had been reached between the province of British Columbia, First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
, environmentalists and the forestry industry to protect 85% of the 6.4 million hectare Great Bear Rainforest from industrial logging.[ The remaining 15% would still be subject to logging under stringent conditions. The agreement also recognizes ]aboriginal rights
Indigenous rights are those rights that exist in recognition of the specific condition of the Indigenous peoples. This includes not only the most basic human rights of physical survival and integrity, but also the rights over their land (inc ...
to shared decision-making, and provides a greater economic share of timber rights and $15-million in funding to 26 First Nations in the area.[
The Great Bear Rainforest (Forest Management) Act was introduced by the government on March 1, 2016.] In September, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge
Catherine, Princess of Wales, (born Catherine Elizabeth Middleton; 9 January 1982) is a member of the British royal family. She is married to William, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the British throne, making Catherine the likely next ...
, visited and unveiled a plaque in the forest acknowledging its admission into the Queen's Commonwealth Canopy.
Fuel spill
On 13 October 2016, a tugboat
A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, su ...
hauling an empty tanker barge ran aground on a reef just off the coast of Athlone Island in Seaforth Channel
, image = Ivory_Island_Lightstation_1.JPG
, alt = Ivory Island Lighthouse
, caption = Ivory Island Lighthouse at the northwest entrance to Seaforth Channel
, pushpin_map = Canada British Columbia
, pushpin_label_position = right
, pushpin_ma ...
(). The reef was located in the traditional territorial waters of the Heiltsuk First Nation and within the larger Great Bear Rainforest. The tug leaked over 100,000 litres of diesel fuel
Diesel fuel , also called diesel oil, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a result of compression of the inlet air and ...
and sank into the channel. By 26 October, the fuel tanks of the tug were emptied and about 101,131 litres of oily water was recovered. The fuel spill was the last major incident to occur in the region since BC Ferries
British Columbia Ferry Services Inc., operating as BC Ferries (BCF), is a former provincial Crown corporation, now operating as an independently managed, publicly owned Canadian company. BC Ferries provides all major passenger and vehicle ferr ...
' '' Queen of the North'' ran aground and sank off the coast of Gill Island on 21 March 2006.
Public outcry over the incident coupled with increased interest in preserving the ecological integrity of the rainforest helped to spur the passage of the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act on 21 June 2019, which prohibits any oil tanker
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined cru ...
from docking at any port along the North Coast of British Columbia
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.
Etymology
The word ''north'' is ...
.
See also
* Forest Products Association of Canada
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
*
Take It Taller: Save The Great Bear Rainforest
* {{cite web , url= http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/rco/ , title= Coast Forest Region , publisher= BC Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations
Pacific temperate rainforests
Old-growth forests
Central Coast of British Columbia
Environmental issues in Canada
Forests of British Columbia