Great Bear Rainforest

We are happy to share with you the long anticipated announcement by the BC Government to protect 1.8 million hectares within the Great Bear Rainforest. This will result in the protection of approximately one third of the rainforest from logging activities. This area includes both previously existing protected areas and newly protected areas. This announcement reflects ten years of negotiations between environmental groups, logging companies, and representatives from First Nations, tourism operators, and other shareholders.

This agreement represents a major milestone in cooperation between radically different interest groups over environmental issues and is viewed as a model for conservation efforts in other regions.

Representing a major first step, it is important to recognize this announcement leaves out numerous extremely important grizzly bear habitats and fails to connect other important protected grizzly bear habitats on the coast. It is important to avoid isolation of grizzly bear populations down the road as intermediate areas become logged or developed in the future. Isolation of populations of large predators is one of the most important issues in conservation biology, second only to complete habitat loss. The area around our Lodge is one of those important connecting corridors between significant protected areas that was not protected by this agreement.