This photo above from Pacific Wild shows only a part of what is being protected

The title for this article comes from a news release by the Treehugger website on July 27, 2006.

Their article from 2006 said: “The government of British Columbia has agreed to protect more than 5 million acres of the Great Bear coastal rainforest. It is home to the world’s last white-colored Spirit Bears “

The Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) was also quoted in the article.

The thousand-year-old red cedars, Sitka spruce, western hemlock and balsam blanketing this swath of rugged coastline provide vital habitat for wolves, eagles, grizzlies and several hundred Spirit Bears. Found only in the Great Bear Rainforest, the Spirit Bear gets its white color from a recessive gene occurring in roughly one of every ten black bears born in the forest. The Spirit Bear figures prominently in the mythology and culture of several indigenous communities — known as First Nations in Canada — that have inhabited the Great Bear Rainforest for thousands of years.

The new conservation agreement, negotiated directly by the British Columbia government and the region’s First Nations, will protect an unspoiled area twice the size of Yellowstone National Park from logging and ensure the right of the First Nations to manage their traditional territories. In addition, the agreement establishes new, more stringent standards for logging in the rainforest outside of the protected area. “The accord will preserve this irreplaceable rainforest but still allow for controlled logging to sustain local economies,” said NRDC senior attorney Susan Casey-Lefkowitz. “It is a new model that shows we can save our most valuable wildlands and our communities at the same time.”

*********************

A lot has changed on the British Columbia coast from that date. Today is October 29, 2013. See the map below from the National Geographic Magazine website and article entitled:

B.C. home of most pipeline safety incidents since 2000
279 of 1,047 incidents reported Canada-wide
from 2000 to late 2012 took place in B.C.

And another map from CBC News – an interactive map, where you can find out more information about each oil spill.

This is why Canadians are up in arms against Prime Minister Harper’s government rulings. The government wants the oil pipelines and tankers; the people of Canada DO NOT!

We want to be able to travel and see the Great Bear Rainforest as it stands today – not buried under miles of dirty oil! See this article from the Seattle Times on travel ideas and how to visit the area. Choose your method of travel and get up there and see what will be destroyed. Help the people of Canada fight this project.