GREAT BEAR RAINFOREST PROTECTED WITH NEW CONSERVATION MEASURES

An area the size of Belgium is to be protected within the Great Bear Rainforest, as British Columbia pushes landmark conservation move.

Environmentalists, forestry companies, First Nation tribes and the provincial government have agreed, after nearly 20 years of fighting, to keep at least 85 percent of the important rainforest out-of-bounds for commercial loggers. With this, they aim to provide a balance between the preservation of this important old-growth rainforest, and commercial activities which indigenous communities rely on.

The Great Bear holds more than just bears. It stretches from British Columbia’s Discovery Islands north to Alaskas’s Tongass Rainforest, and is packed full of sea life like killer whales, harbour seals, sea otters and multiple species of salmon. As well as the grizzly bears, the area is home to the extremely rare spirit bear, a beautiful cream-coloured genetic mutation of the brown bear.

“The Great Bear Rainforest is a global treasure,” says British Columbia Premier Christy Clark, “and all British Columbians have a stake in protecting it.”

Although tourism, mining and biodiversity projects are still permitted, logging will be outlawed on an additional 730,000 acres of old-growth rainforest. The protected old-growth area will extend to 73.6 million acres, up from 50 to 70 percent. Activists have praised the new rules.

Valeria Langer, solutions director at ForestEthics, is enthusiastic about the move. “The Great Bear Rainforest Agreements is one of the most visionary forest conservation plans on Earth… that will keep millions of tons of carbon out of the atmosphere.”

“That carbon that’s being kept out of the atmosphere? “640,000 tons of carbon pollution every year” states Greenpeace, who have been campaigning for this for years.

It’s important that the First Nations tribes are not being forgotten about. That’s why the deal includes a $15 million payment from the province to the tribes, a share of logging profits, and an agreement that those tribes will share any decision making that goes on regarding the protected area. Trophy hunting of grizzly bears from their home lands is banned.

One of the main points about this move, is that the case for preserving such a large area has been made with scientific data. As such, and logging will be dictated by “ecosystem-based management” which crunches numbers to find the best balance between conservation efforts and economic needs. “We need to strike a balance, and that doesn’t mean shutting down all logging operations or mills and having jobs lost” says Nicholas Manville, a forest campaigner for Greenpeace Canada.

This is a great step in the right direction for conservation efforts, but we can’t help wonder if all this could be avoided by reducing our demand on the logging industry as a whole. Perhaps with the use of hemp instead of wood in areas such as furniture, housebuilding, components and even stationary, we could one day see 100 percent of the Great Bear Rainforest protected.

Original article by Takepart

Image copyright to Tim McGrady