GreatBearWatch

Tracking progress in implementing the March 31, 2009 Great Bear Rainforest Agreements

The new Great Bear Rainforest Agreements announced on March 31, 2009 by the BC government, First Nations, logging industry and environmental organizations included full legislation of 2.1 million hectares protected from logging. Between this and new, transitional logging regulations 50 per cent of the rainforest is now off-limits to logging.

The Agreements also included a 2009 – 2014 workplan to achieve the goals of ecological health and high quality of life in communities with the aim of ensuring 70 per cent of the natural level of old-growth forest is maintained across the region by 2014.

Just one year after the announcement, new conservation measures that were identified within the Agreements as a priority by all parties are now critically delayed.

A network of forests and critical habitat for five species of conservation concern outside of protected areas were supposed to be mapped and set aside from logging as “reserves” by September 2009.

Without these measures a number of these key species, could still be at risk, including grizzly bears, marbled murrelets, mountain goats, northern goshawks and tailed frogs.

Read the March 5 2010 press release “Critical species in Great Bear Rainforest falling through the cracks”

Read the report “Slipping Through the Cracks? The Fate of Focal Species in the Great Bear Rainforest”

Read the Globe and Mail article “Logging plan's delay puts species at risk: study”

For an overview on the 2009 Agreements read our Great Bear Rainforest update.