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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 32,000 km2 (12,000 sq mi). 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 16,000 km2 (6,200 sq mi) of the region has been designated as protected areas (in a form called conservancies), and 3,000 km2 (1,200 sq mi) 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 1980’s. Then Peter McAllister, an ex-chair of the Sierra Club of Western Canada , veteran forest campaigner and early advocate for boycotts against the timber industry [A], [11] chartered a two-masted ship, the North Star of Herschel Island and sailed north from Victoria in the summer of 1990 with a crew of environmentalists. Their mission was to begin exploring, researching and bringing recognition to the ecological and cultural values of a significant expanse of the earth’s temperate rainforest. They alone conducted the campaign to bring protection to the Great Bear Rainforest until 1996 when many of the environmental organizations involved in the struggle to save Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island began to join the campaign. [A] The first order of business on every voyage was to offer support to the coastal First Nations in their struggle to take back their traditional territory from the timber industry. [A] The inaugural expedition led immediately to the protection of the threatened Koeye River watershed, one of the most ecologically and culturally significant river systems on the Central Coast. [A] . The expedition voyages took on board an international array of journalists, filmmakers, photographers, scientists and conservationists. Commencing with the third expedition in 1993, Peter’s family including Ian McAllister, Karen McAllister,and Bernadette Mertens McAllister became valuable team members. . Mike Humphries, a WWII fighter pilot flew aerial reconnaissance, enhancing the documentation of remote logging operations while offering a birds eye view of a landscape as large as Switzerland. [A] In 1994 evidence of a grizzly bear slaughter precipitated an expose 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. Articles and film documentaries brought international condemnation and the cancellation of contracts with pulp and paper producers. [A 72] (“Battle for the Trees”). In 1994 Sierra, the magazine of the Sierra Club with a circulation 500,000 went public with the headlines “Magazine wants no part of B.C. pulp” , Excerpts from an award winning film festival documentary depicting massive clearcutting were picked up by Turner Broadcasting (CNN) and PBS. [A] (“Legacy: Killing a Temperate Rainforest”) Hon. Jup Weber, MP of Luxembourg, a leader of the Greens, and an outspoken critic of the province’s logging practices, invited Peter McAllister to the European Parliament in Strasbourg to present evidence of the relentless over-cutting of the coastal temperate rainforest countering decades of denials by the provincial government and the timber industry. [A] Evolution of the name “Great Bear Rainforest”. First it was publicized as the Hidden Coast” and the “Raincoast.” In 1993 the flagship organization representing their campaign was registered as the “Raincoast Conservation Society.” Expeditions became known as “Raincoast Expeditions.” [50] In 1993 after the third expedition Peter McAllister came up with the first use of the “Great Bear” name in honour of the coastal grizzlies that held dominion over the unlogged salmon rivers. “Great Bear Wilderness” made its appearance in a 1994 Raincoast Conservation Society publication. [A] 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. Subsequently Raincoast’s aerial reconnaissance photography was used to convince major home building suppliers to threaten logging companies invading Heiltsuk territory with boycotts. This action was a catalyst forcing the provincial government and the timber industry to come to the table for the beginning.... Discover the Peter Mcallister popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Peter Mcallister books.