Irony in the Great Bear Rainforest
Western portion of Northern Gateway plan travels through an area of unprecedented conservation significance
The far western portion of the route for the proposed Northern Gateway oil pipeline enters the Great Bear Rainforest northwest of Kitimat. There is trouble all along the line for Northern Gateway, but things get really tricky in the Great Bear Rainforest and surrounding marine waters. In many respects, this situation is an irony of ironies. After all, the region is where the province’s War in the Woods came to end.
In 2007 the World Wildlife Fund presented its prestigious Gift to the Earth award to the B. C. government, first nations, forest companies, ENGOs ( Environmental Nongovernmental Organizations) and coastal stakeholders in recognition of an unprecedented conservation agreement in the Great Bear Rainforest. The Gift to the Earth was in recognition of the decade of tireless effort that turned a burning conflict into a consensus agreement between conservation and logging.
In the mid- 1990s environmental organizations campaigned vigorously to halt logging in the pristine valleys of the Great Bear Rainforest. Forest companies talked about jobs and the economy, government defended the stringency of its environmental regulation, first nations asserted their sovereignty, a host of others with a stake in the region made their voices heard and the global marketplace for forest products and international media took notice.
It was a classic environmental conflict and ultimately a cul- de- sac. Once the antagonists began to understand there was no exit from the conflict, things began to change. Front- line forest companies and environmental groups took a leap of faith and began to meet face- to- face, exploring the art of the possible and how best to engage with the provincial government’s public planning process and with first nations.
A conflict well down the road to a lose- lose outcome established the necessity for reaching an agreement, and the “ah- ha!” moment arrived in the form of a singular understanding between the industry and environmentalists. The forest companies acknowledged that the Great Bear Rainforest was a globally significant ecosystem and environmental groups recognized that fostering the wellbeing of people and communities in the region over the long term was a vital element for achieving a conservation breakthrough. The agreement’s defining principle integrated both understandings: human well- being ( in the vernacular of the agreement human well- being is about jobs, the economy and quality of life) and ecological integrity are coequal values to be pursued concurrently while recognizing that actions supporting human well- being must avoid degrading the environment.
This moment of understanding arrived more than a decade ago and led to the establishment of the Joint Solutions Project ( JSP) and the underpinning of EBM ( ecosystem- based management), a new and innovative approach to conservation and development designed for the Great Bear Rainforest.
The JSP is an initiative of a group of coastal forestry businesses ( BC Timber Sales, Catalyst Paper Corp., Howe Sound Pulp & Paper, Interfor and Western Forest Products) and three environmental organizations ( ForestEthics, Greenpeace and Sierra Club BC). Working together they have dedicated significant resources to achieve both low ecological risk and high degrees of human well- being within the framework of the agreement.
The new approach to forest management is supported by a suite of legal orders and policies put in place by the provincial government that supports the transition to full EBM by 2014. By which time, the intent is to secure 70- per- cent representation of old- growth forest in protected areas and reserves concurrent with a wood flow of 2.7 million cubic metres a year.
This represents a 40- per- cent reduction in the allowable annual harvest compared to that at the start of the process, but is sufficient to support a meaningful contribution to human well- being by commercial forestry. Collectively we are within striking distance of the goal, having already established an impressive protected areas system, implemented the system of EBM, secured a unique privatepublic funding mechanism — the Coast Opportunities Fund — to support conservation and community well- being and established a province first nations collaborative governance framework.
What occurred in the Great Bear Rainforest is an internationally acclaimed model of sustainability and cooperation made possible through building trust, a commitment to conflict resolution and the transparent application of science and technical information.
It is a uniquely made- in- B. C. approach that reflects our values as British Columbians to balance ecological needs with the social needs of our communities while respecting the views of the international community.
Today, the lessons learned in the rainforest by loggers, environmentalists, first nations and the provincial government stand out because, collectively, we chose a different pathway to consensus- based solutions despite the fact that the road may not always have been smooth or certain.