Andrew S. Wright's Great Bear Expedition
Photo: Andrew S. Wright
June 2010
Prelude to the Great Bear Expedition: Departure Day Minus One
It is the last day before I leave for the Great Bear Rainforest and a two-week photo expedition. Hopefully, I will return with images that will help raise awareness and the pressing conservation issues of this coastline. Salmon farming, trophy hunting of bears, logging, and mining have all taken and continue to take a toll - but now the intent to build an oil pipeline through the core of this globally important bio-diverse gem has been confirmed by Enbridge.
This will be my sixth trip into the Great Bear; ordinarily at this point I am getting pretty excited. However, this time is different – the last few months have seen every waking moment focused on salmon conservation issues and I have the sinking feeling that I am woefully unprepared. I bet I have forgotten to pack the one key thing that will tip the balance in either staying dry or getting the picture.
The darker concern, however, is the overshadowing of the tragic events unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. Many comparisons have already been made, and presumably many more will be, regarding the Gulf and the central coast of British Columbia. But this week David Guggenheim (president of the One Planet One Ocean Project of the Ocean Foundation), a staunch supporter of my salmon aquaculture work, was here in Vancouver and he was utterly distraught. His life’s work has been focused on conservation issues in the Gulf of Mexico – an entire ecosystem potentially lost in just a few short months. We constructed a photo interview and you can listen to his thought provoking words for Canadians, urging them to protect the Great Bear and stop the pipeline at this link.
The images coming from the Gulf are truly biblical in their apocalyptic presence, the disaster is still unfolding but it is rapidly falling from the global public attention. For several days now the BBC has not covered the story – new fresh story angles are hard to come by, yet the massive scale of damage is only just beginning to unfold. Thus it is not lost on me how important it is to come home with compelling images that may help convince decision makers that stopping the pipeline is ultimately very much the right economic decision: for the cleanup costs substantively out-strip the economic value delivered when an accident occurs. Not to mention the incalculable cost of a forever-lost ecosystem.
In the last few days the weather has finally broken – almost four months of continuous rain have passed and hopefully the high pressure system will stick around while I am on the central coast. The heron in flight picture was taken walking distance from my home, a shore line here in Vancouver where our city beaches would be impacted if an Exxon Valdez event were to happen on the central coast.
Tomorrow I leave for the Great Bear via Prince Rupert and Hartley Bay. As the expedition unfolds I will keep you briefed as communication links allow. I hope you will follow my journey and perhaps become an advocate for an oil-free coast.
Cheers,
Andrew S. Wright
UPDATED - Check out where Andrew is currently on Google maps!
