The Great Bear Rainforest is a temperate rain forest on the Pacific coast of British Columbia, 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 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 in the south to the BC–Alaska boundary in the north. It includes all offshore islands within this range except Vancouver Island and the archipelago of Haida Gwaii. Its northern end reaches up Portland Canal 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. Kitimat is outside the region, to the east. Farther south, the region includes all of the coast west and south of the Fiordland Conservancy, Kitlope Heritage Conservancy Protected Area, Tweedsmuir North and Tweedsmuir South Provincial Parks—which includes Dean Channel, Burke Channel, Rivers Inlet, and the communities of Bella Bella, Bella Coola, and Hagensborg. The southern end of the region includes Knight Inlet and Bute Inlet.
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, salmon, grizzly bears, and the Kermode ("spirit") bear, a unique subspecies of the black bear, in which one in ten cubs displays a recessive white coloured coat.
The forest features 1,000-year-old western red cedar and 90-metre tall 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, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Northern California.
History Campaign for protection The temperate rainforests of the Central and North Coast of mainland BC were largely unknown to conservationists as late as the 1980s. Then in 1990 Peter McAllister, an ex-chair of the Sierra Club of Western Canada, veteran forest campaigner Carmanah Walbran Provincial ParkYoung, Cameron (December 1989) BC Business, Is This Man the Enemy? “Environmentalist Peter McAllister relentlessly dogs the forest companies’ every move. Just what does he want?” BC BusinessYoung, Cameron (May 26-June 1988), “His old corporate cronies may think he has switched sides. But Peter McAllister says working as a leading environmental lobbyists is just good business”. SIERRA PADRE, Monday Magazine and early advocate for boycotts against the timber industryTafler, Sid (August 30-December 5, 1990), “The European Connection” Monday Magazine Wickens, Barbara with Hal Quinn, (May 13, 1991) “A Powerful Screen Attack” p. 36 Maclean’s MagazineQuinn, Hal, (June 10, 1991) A clear-cut fight: “B.C. logging becomes an international issue” Maclean’s Magazine(June 30, 1991) “European boycott latest tactic in clearcut battle“, Times Colonist chartered a three-masted ship, skippered by an arctic adventurer, Captain Sven Johansson.MacFarlane, John M and Johansson, Sven, (summer 1991) The North Star p. 17, Last of the Western Arctic Eskimo trapping schooners is still making a contribution after being rescued from a beach on Banks Island”, Maritime Museum of British Columbia With a crew of friends aboard the North Star of Hershel Island, McAllister sailed north from Victoria that summer to launch what would become known as the Great Bear Rainforest Campaign.
It was the first of a series of exploration voyages to the Central and North Coast of British Columbia to support the First Nations of the Central and North Coast in taking back their traditional territories from the timber companies, protecting the remaining unlogged watershedsKeith Moore, (1991) COASTAL WATERSHEDS, An Inventory of Watersheds in the Coastal Temperate Rainforests of British Columbia, EARTHLIFE CANADA FOUNDATION & ECOTRUST/CONSERVATION INTERNATIONALJoel Connelly (May/June 1991) BRITISH COLUMBIA’S BIG CUT, Sierra, the magazine of the Sierra Club with a publication of 500,000 and bringing recognition to the ecological and cultural values of a significant expanse of the earth’s temperate rainforest.Cameron Young (Fall 1994), “Canadian Forests at Risk”
Organizing themselves as the Raincoast Conservation Society, they alone conducted the Great Bear Rainforest Campaign until 1996 when some of the environmental organizations involved in Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island turned their attention to the Great Bear.
The Society's expedition voyages took on board an international array of journalists, filmmakers, photographers, scientists and conservationists.(January/February 1994) Canada’s Secret Forests “THE CHAINSAWS DRAW NEAR” Before the FALL, SIERRA, THE MAGAZINE OF THE SIERRA CLUBLavoie, Judith, (Friday, May 27, 1994), Crusader: "Clearcut carnage threatens rainforest valleys" Times Colonist The first order of business was to make contact with the Heiltsuk First Nation in Bella Bella, the fishing village in the heart of the Great Bear.Tafler, i, (Dec. 2-8, 1993) The Heiltsuk Connection “How a tribal park land and one determined Victoria man could shift the battle over forestry to the mainland coast” Monday Magazine
On the inaugural expedition they learned that MacMillan Bloedell was poised to log the Koeye River watershed (18,625 ha). Having salmon runs and a healthy grizzly population, the Koeye together with the adjacent Namu River watershed is one of the largest complexes of ancient forests of Central Coast. On returning to Victoria, McAllister presented the Koeye River Watershed Wilderness Proposal, which convinced the Social Credit government to set aside the Koeye watershed from logging in 1991.Little, R.W., (April 1991) Koeye River Watershed Wilderness Reserve Proposal
The second exploratory expedition was aboard the sloop of Baden Cross, a founding director of their Great Bear Campaign organization, the Raincoast Conservation Society. In Bella Bella on the third expedition in 1993 was the commencement of a long-term interaction with chiefs, elders, and concerned teenagers of the Heiltsuk First Nation regarding the conservation of their traditional territory on the Central Coast.
Commencing with the third expedition in 1993, Peter’s family including Ian McAllister, Karen McAllister, and Bernadette Mertens McAllister became team members.
In 1994 Ian and Karen McAllister sailed their catamaran Halibut from Ottawa through the Panama Canal to join the Raincoast expeditions. Their photography helped illuminate the Great Bear internationally. In the first five years of the campaign, thousands of kilometres of ragged coast line and fjords were sailed all the way to the Alaskan border, the full extent of the Great Bear.
Mike Humphries, a Second World War fighter pilot, flew aerial reconnaissance, enhancing the documentation of logging operations while offering a bird's eye view of the landscape of the Great BearCowell, Douglas (November/December 1995) Forgotten Forest, CANADIAN WILDLIFE Documentary Film: “Raincoast: North Among the Fjords”(“Raincoast: North Among the Fjords”).
In 1994 Ian and Karen discovered a headless and pawless grizzly bear carcass. Shooting blinds in trees above salmon spawning beds were found. The Society publicized poaching and overhunting of the threatened bear population.
Stories of these first years of the campaign were presented in slide shows in western North America and Europe while those on board spread the word in newspapers, articles, journals and magazines.Der Stern Magazin, 1993, CA UVICARCH SC 684 (44A)McAllister, Peter, (March 29, 1995) Presentation, House of Representatives, Berlin, GermanyMaxwell, Jessica, (January–February 1994) The Last Best Rainforest: “Clearcuts in British Columbia have roused Canadians to Action” AUDUBONGenovali, Christopher, (Summer 1995) Beyond Clayoquot Sound, EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL Documentaries brought international condemnation and the cancellation of contracts with pulp and paper producers.Gill, Dominic, (October 1, 1992) “Front-ranking British publisher cancels plans to buy B.C. newsprint” LOOT says “No”, London’s Notice BoardFindley, Rowe, (September 1990) Endangered Old-Growth Forests: “Will We Save Our Own”, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC p. 132 In the 1994 edition of Sierra, the magazine of the Sierra Club, said “Magazine wants no part of B.C. pulp”,Hamilton, Gordon, (Wednesday, February 2, 1994) SIERRA: Magazine Wants No Part of B.C. Pulp: Other environmental publications are likely to follow suit, “Sierra says it has ended its odious British Columbia Connection” The Vancouver Sun Excerpts from the documentary Legacy: Killing a Temperate Rainforest depicting clearcutting were picked up by CNN and PBS. Jup Weber, MP of Luxembourg, a leader of the Greens, and the European critic on logging practices,Der Stern Magazin Dec. 15, 1993 “Brazil of the North” invited Peter McAllister to the European Parliament in Strasbourg to present evidence of the clearcutting of old-growth forests in coastal British Columbia, countering decades of denials by the provincial government and the timber industry.(June 16, 1993) Speech to the Members of the European Parliament, Helsinki, Finland, The Green Group
Evolution of the name Great Bear Rainforest. First it was publicized as the Hidden Coast” and the “Raincoast.”Seattle Audubon Society, BRITISH COLUMBIA’S RAINFORESTS: THE Hidden Coast, slide lecture by Peter McAllister, Seattle Audubon Society(Fall 1994), Raincoast Wilderness, WildEARTH In 1993 with the launching of their flagship organization, the Raincoast Conservation Society,(June 22, 1993) Raincoast Conservation Society: Society Act, Annual Report expeditions became known as “Raincoast Expeditions.”(1993) Schulz, Karen, Raincoast Expeditions ’93 The Spearhead(Nov. 27, 1994) “For the sake of the ancient forests, the grizzlies, the wild salmon and us all…THIS STORY MUST BE TOLD” A MULTI MEDIA PRESENTATION ON THE 1994 RAINCOAST EXPEDITION, RAINCOAST ’94 That year Peter McAllister first used the “Great Bear” name in honour of the coastal grizzlies fishing the salmon rivers. “Great Bear Wilderness” made its appearance in a 1994 Raincoast Conservation Society publication.(1994) McAllister, Peter, “Almost every wilderness valley or inlet with significant stands of timber will have logging roads through them in three to five years” CANADIAN Raincoast Wilderness, A Raincoast Coast Conservation Society Publication In 1996 Ian McAllister added “Rainforest” to the “Great Bear” name when the Raincoast Conservation Society met with Rainforest Action Network in San Francisco to develop their international market campaign strategy.Rainforest Action Network Trophy, 2002 World Rainforest Award, Peter McAllister and Ian McAllister, Rainforest Heroes