The promise made three years ago to protect one-third of the Great Bear Rainforest has been fulfilled! Sierra Club BC played a key role in bringing about the March 31 final agreement, which lays the foundation for a conservation- based economy in the world's largest intact temperate rainforest.

Check out the latest updates (May 2010).

"The Great Bear Rainforest is now the most protected forest region of British Columbia," said Jens Wieting, coastal forest campaigner for Sierra Club BC. "But we must continue to meet key milestones we've set to achieve our long-term goals of full ecosystem health and thriving local communities."

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B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest is a global ecological treasure. It is home to 1,000-year-old western red cedars, trees as tall as 30-storey buildings and the rare white Kermode bear--or “Spirit” Bear. This dazzling coastal forest stretches from Bute Inlet on B.C.’s south coast to the Alaskan border to the north. Covering 6.4 million hectares, the Great Bear Rainforest represents 25 percent of the earth’s remaining ancient coastal temperate rainforests. A Special Place.

Spirit (Kermode) Bear, Marni Grossman

Until 2006, the Great Bear Rainforest was threatened by industrial logging-- to produce products that included two by fours, toilet paper and disposable diapers. Following a prolonged international campaign, an historic land use consensus was achieved in February 2006 by the B.C. government, First Nations, the forest industry, environmental groups and other stakeholders.  The agreements legally protect two million hectares of the Great Bear Rainforest from logging—an area about the size of Belize. They also commit forestry companies to switch to lighter touch logging practices in the remainder of the forest. Sierra Club BC played a key role in achieving the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements. Our Campaign. 

Kitasoo/Xaixais totem pole at Klemtu Photo: Caitlyn Vernon

Our focus has been to ensure full implementation of the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements. Along with other conservation groups, Sierra Club BC has worked with the B.C. government, First Nations and industry to establish the ground rules and timeline for achieving full implementation of new logging practices by 2009, and to ensure that legislation is passed to protect designated areas of the Great Bear Rainforest. Threats.

We collaborate with First Nations communities to ensure that economic transition brings jobs and possibilities. The three key components of the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements – protection, lighter touch logging and support for economic transformation—form a unique conservation model that we hope will make B.C. a global example for similar initiatives elsewhere. Solutions That Work. 

Find out what you can do to help ensure the historic Great Bear Rainforest agreements are upheld, so that this ecological jewel can be protected forever. What You Can Do

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