Great Bear Rainforest First Nations

First Nations have lived in the Great Bear Rainforest since the glaciers of the last ice age receded.

Ecological health, community well-being

In Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest, we have been a part of creating a new model for ecosystem-based management that supports both the ecological health and community well-being of that region. Our goal is to engage in projects like this in other regions where we work when appropriate and possible.

We provide technical capacity to First Nations to increase their understanding of ecosystem-based management, and we have also supported the development of the Ecosystem-Based Management Learning Forum. This forum brings together practitioners in resource management (e.g. forestry and GIS technicians, land use planners, marine use planners) in an experiential learning environment, and creates a place for them to network and share knowledge with each other.
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We lobbied for years to have First Nations treated as a government with authority over its traditional territories in the negotiations that resulted in the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement. We worked with First Nations in the Great Bear to establish a new type of legislation for protected areas, called conservancies. The legislation prohibits industrial development, but allows First Nations’ traditional and cultural uses within the protected areas.

On February 7, 2006, a majority of the coastal First Nations in the Great Bear Rainforest and the province announced agreements on land use designations for the Central Coast and North Coast, setting in stone the unprecedented victory in the Great Bear Rainforest.

We also collaborated with First Nations to create a $120 million conservation financing fund, called the Coast Opportunity Funds. This fund supports First Nations stewardship and monitoring of the conservancies and conservation-based economic development opportunities. A new standard of logging practices, grounded upon ecosystem-based management, will also be implemented in the region. The logging standard provides strengthened protection not just for ecological values, but also for First Nations' cultural and heritage values.
Learn more about the Great Bear Rainforest >>