Several First Nations will be part of a landmark agreement, being announced today, to protect the Great Bear Rain Forest in British Columbia.
First Nations use the Great Bear, a 15 million-acre area that is the world's largest remaining intact temperate coastal rain forest, for ceremonies, to collect medicinal herbs and to find trees for totem poles, canoes and long houses. The forest is the home of the "spirit bears," black bears with recessive genes that make their fur white.
The agreement will limit logging to 10 million acres of the forest. First Nations will have a say in which areas will be preserved or selectively logged. In the past, Native activists staged sit-ins to prevent logging.
"Now we can manage our destiny," Ross Wilson, the chairman of the Heiltsuk Nation, told The New York Times.
The First Nations also hope to benefit from an influx of eco-tourism and other environmentally-friendly development through a $105 million fund. "This is the key. This will jump-start the economy," Arthur Sterritt, the executive director for the Coastal First Nations, told The Washington Post.
Get the Story:Canada to Shield 5 Million Forest Acres (The New York Times 2/7)
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Huge Canadian Park Is Born of Compromise (The Washington Post 2/7)
pwpwd Relevant Links:
Save the Great Bear - http://www.savethegreatbear.org
Campaign to Protect the Raincoast Conservation Foundation- http://www.raincoast.org