It has been 20 years in the making. Now an agreement has been reached among environmentalists, aboriginal groups, logging companies, and the government, to protect a massive area of British Columbia’s coastal rainforest. Valerie Langer, director of forest conservation for Forest Ethics Solutions was a major player in the deal. The Great Bear rainforest comprises…
A group of African refugee tree planters who were found living in miserable conditions at a camp near Golden were award their EI payments after more than five years in court. According to the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre (BCPIAC), who represented the tree planters in their fight with the Canada Revenue Agency, the Minister…
The University of British Columbia’s finance committee has voted against selling off the school’s fossil fuel holdings, saying it would go against their fiduciary duty. The finance committee, part of the school’s Board of Governors, made the recommendation Wednesday to keep fossil fuel stocks as part of the university’s $1.4-billion endowment, while also creating a…
On Monday, B.C.’s coastal forest industry celebrated signing the Great Bear Rainforest conservation agreement along with the region’s First Nations and environmental groups. But the companies involved don’t have a lot of time to rest on their laurels. The deal offers the forest licensees certainty around access to an annual harvest of 2.5 million cubic…
The Vancouver Park Board has voted unanimously in favour of a biodiversity strategy that will see 25 hectares of “natural area” in the city restored or enhanced by 2020. There are 20 at-risk species in the city according to the park board, which considers its new strategy a “legacy piece” that will ensure future generations can…
The Great Bear Rainforest agreement is a victory for everyone involved, including the forest industry, said its members after yesterday’s announcement signaled that 15 per cent of the forest was open to logging. The agreement also protects 85 per cent of the coastal temperate rainforest, which stretches from B.C.’s Discovery Islands to Alaska’s Tongass Rainforest,…
This week’s landmark agreement to preserve a huge tract of the B.C. coastal forest had its beginnings in words scratched on a tablecloth in a San Francisco restaurant some 20 years ago. “We were sitting around at dinner one night in a cheap Italian restaurant with a bottle of great wine,” wrote activist Tzeporah Berman…
First Nations governments and the BC government, with the support of ForestEthics Solutions, Greenpeace, Sierra Club BC and five forestry companies, have announced the fulfilment of the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements. Eighty-five percent (3.1 million hectares) of the remote wilderness region’s coastal temperate rainforests are now permanently off-limits to industrial logging. The remaining 15 percent…
An Ojibway community on the north shore of Lake Superior is carving out a path to prosperity in forestry. Biigtigong Nishnaabeg (formerly Pic River First Nation) has taken possession of new European-made harvesting equipment to launch a forestry company to start harvesting off its traditional land this winter. Coupled with that is the news of…
TimberWest salutes the Great Bear Rainforest Land Use Order passing into law. This historic legal order is the result of more than 15 years of discussions between First Nations, Government, forest companies and environmental groups working together to find sustainable environmental, social and economic solutions within the Great Bear Rainforest. The Order sets forth new…