The Great Bear Rainforest—one of the largest tracts of temperate rainforest in the world—extends along 64,000 square kilometres (an area the size of Ireland) of the British Columbia Coast. A decade and a half ago the region was the focus of an international controversy over the logging of old growth forests. Today everything has changed.
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Highlights of the agreement:
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Consensus among a broad range of coastal interests following more than a decade of planning and collaboration.
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Collaborative governance based on a new relationship between the British Columbia government and First Nations.
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A legally designated protected areas network that encompasses one third of the region (2.1 million ha/4.9million acres).
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Legally designated system of ecosystem-based management designed for the Great Bear Rainforest that seeks, over time, to secure low ecological risk to the rainforest and high degrees of human wellbeing.
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As a result of the efforts of many, the rainforest is ecologically secure, social and cultural values are respected and a reliable supply of forest products from the region is available to customers around the world.
Over the past decade, the Joint Solutions Project (JSP), an initiative of a group of coastal forestry businesses (BC Timber Sales, Catalyst Paper Corporation, Howe Sound Pulp & Paper, Interfor and Western Forest Products) and three environmental organizations (ForestEthics, Greenpeace and Sierra Club BC), has dedicated thousands of hours and significant financial resources to support world-leading independent science, negotiation and collaboration. This culminated in 2009 with an internationally acclaimed
conservation agreement
in the Great Bear Rainforest.
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