rainforests

British Columbia is endowed with the 7.4 million hectare Great Bear Rainforest and adjacent offshore archipelago of Haida Gwaii, one of the few remaining large blocks of comparatively unmodified landscapes on earth. The Great Bear includes over a quarter of the Pacific Coastal rainforests of North America and is home to spectacular wildlife and prodigious salmon runs that are increasingly rare around the world.

Taking America by storm with actions reminiscent of the 60s, “Occupy Wall Street” has gone viral in an attempt to raise awareness about corporate interests being placed above public needs.

After 30 years of controversy that tore at the social fabric of Tasmania, the federal and Tasmanian governments of Australia finally signed the Tasmanian Forests Intergovernmental Agreement to provide support and funding that will help the timber industry transition out of native-forest logging and will protect the region’s high-conservation-value rainforests. In sum, the government will provide much-needed financial support for workers and contractors to cease logging native forests while it takes legal steps to protect these forests as formal reserves similar to national parks.

Aggressive logging in one of the last remaining large blocks of temperate rainforests in the world – the Great Bear Rainforest - is jeopardizing an historic agreement designed to boost rainforest protections and shift logging from industrial clearcuts toward ecosystem-based management (a lesser form of logging).