On Feb. 2, the Canadian government announced that they will protect 85 percent of the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia from logging and development.
The deal, which took almost two decades to develop, was made between First Nation groups and various logging companies to protect an area over twice the size of Belgium. Great Bear Rainforest is the largest coastal temperate rainforest on Earth and is home to many unique Canadian species. The agreement will protect the region’s old and second-growth forests as well as prohibit hunting of the spirit bear, a subspecies of black bear with white fur.
“The Great Bear Rainforest — there’s no question — is a jewel in the crown of magnificent landscapes in British Columbia,” British Columbia Premier Christy Clark told BBC.
This deal, negotiated by the 26 indigenous groups that live in the area, environmental groups and logging companies, does not provide complete protection of the forest. Eighty-five percent of the area will be free of logging, but logging companies will be able to harvest from the last 15 percent.
Hunting spirit bear, or Kermode, may be banned, but grizzly hunting can continue on the land.
Still, many are heralding the new agreement as a major environmental success. One of those people is Richard Brooks, the forest campaign coordinator for Greenpeace Canada.
“In other places in the world, people are fighting to protect one or two percent of the environment,” he told the Huffington Post. “To be able to accomplish something on this scale, … set [this land] aside forever, that means the vast majority of the old growth forest will continue to live on.”
Jens Wieting, a forest and climate campaigner with the Sierra Club of British Columbia, agreed with Brooks. In particular, Wieting is pleased with the scientific basis of the decision and hopes that it may set the standard for environmental fights elsewhere.
“We have very little time to increase protections … before the impacts of climate change will make it harder for species to adapt,” he told the Huffington Post.
Critics of the deal claim that it does not do enough to protect some of the rainforest’s old growth trees. In particular, some criticize the allowance of logging to continue on the region’s low elevation old-growth forests.
“If the coastline has a heart, those low-elevation forests would be it,” Ian McAllister, a nature photographer and co-founder of Pacific Wild, told the Globe and Mail. Others express concern about the allowance of continued grizzly hunting within the Great Bear Rainforest’s boundaries.
Grizzlies are keystone species at Great Bear Rainforest, meaning they serve a crucial and almost irreplaceable role there. Specifically, they are ecosystem engineers, changing the landscape through their actions.
Grizzlies at Great Bear Rainforest do this through salmon hunting. When a grizzly catches a salmon, it will drag it inland before eating it. The leftovers the bear does not eat are rich in nitrogen, an essential nutrient for plant growth.
Some scientists estimate that 80 percent of the forest’s nitrogen comes from these decomposing fish. Without the grizzlies, many of the trees would not be able to survive.
Protecting the bears, activists could argue, is a means of protecting the forest. Without hunting restrictions, the forest’s long-term health could be in danger.
Even with these concerns, many still think that the agreement should be celebrated for what it has been able to achieve — namely, the setting aside of large tracts of land.
“We have a model now and we have hope,” Wieting told the Huffington Post. “We need more stories like this; in the end the forest wins.”
