Running along Canada's Pacific coast from Vancouver Island to the southernmost point of the state of Alaska is a 19-million-acre swath of land that has never been improved, developed, exploited, earmarked or even fully explored.
The fact undoubtedly has developers and energy company execs chomping at the bit, but the animals living there - the wolves, bears, fox, deer, elk, goats, martens, squirrels, caribou, eagles, sea lions, birds and fish - are likely ecstatic in their isolation. Anyone who has studied earth's environment realizes that the works of man are, almost always, antithetical to nature, and the only way to preserve the latter intact is to limit the former.
This expanse of wilderness, known as the Great Bear Rainforest, was originally established by the British Columbia (BC) government in 2001 based on the input of various environmental groups, First Nations tribes, logging companies and consumers. Its aim was to protect more than 20 rainforest valleys in the area from logging or other development, and to extend temporary protection to another 68 pristine wilderness areas within the province.
Five years later, the BC government, under the Parks Act and at the instigation of Greenpeace, ForestEthics and Sierra Club of Canada (BC Chapter), made most of the temporary provisions permanent, granting formal protection to 5 million acres. Established as a conservancy district and dedicated to "collaborative conservation", the Great Bear Rainforest allows limited and sustainable forestry practices and even low-impact economic development among regional communities like First Nation villages.
All this protectionism transpired under twice-elected BC Premier Gordon Campbell, whose middle name (Muir) commemorates America's first naturalist and conservationist, John Muir. Campbell, the leader of the Liberal Party and heir to a fortune that vanished when his father committed suicide, spearheaded the legislation to protect the region as a memorial to the mysterious white spirit bear told of in First Nation Gitga'at tribal legends. According to the legend, this spirit is a reminder to future generations that the world must be kept pristine if it is to survive.
The old-growth coastal rainforests of western Canada are estimated to sequester from 250 to 520 tons of carbon per acre, and extract another ton every year, helping reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that reportedly cause global warming. These forests, filled with 1,000-year old trees standing nearly 300 feet tall, are the habitat not only for the rare white bear, a genetic anomaly descended from black bears, but also for 50 percent of Canada's grizzly bear population. They also contain such notable species as black-tailed deer, Roosevelt elk, grey wolves, mountain goats, and three-quarters of Canada's breeding populations of woodpeckers, tree swallows, chickarees and owls.
These are truly lands that time forgot, filled with mists and ferny forest floors, and the amnesia has been a blessing for rare ecologies. Unfortunately, some key components of the conservancy were never hammered out or enforced, and now - with a March 2009 deadline approaching - the Great Bear Rainforest faces further challenges as loggers, developers and others salivate over the prospect of a wilderness open to plundering.
Keep the Promise, a nonprofit conservation organization backed by the original proponents of the 2006 legislation, has set up a website to encourage Canadian citizens (and others) to sign a petition demanding Campbell and the BC government institute all of the provisions recommended under the original agreement. To do less, the organization maintains, is to jeopardize all the progress made so far. A supporting nonprofit, GreatBearWatch, is now maintaining a site with a countdown clock marking the days and hours until the deadline.
Please visit one, or both, sites and make your voice heard. Time is running out for the Great Bear Rainforest, the world's largest temperate rainforest, and for its inhabitants. A spirit totem is nothing to mess with, and a vision quest may reveal truths closer to reality than we imagine.
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