Map 1- Located in British Columbia, Canada the Great Bear Rainforest stretches along a thin band of the Pacific coast for 500 kilometres. From Knight Inlet to the Alaskan Panhandle - an area the size of Switzerland - the Great Bear Rainforest covers 7 million hectares. It is called the Great Bear Rainforest because it is one of the last great grizzly strongholds in the world and also supports a large black bear population, and a rare genetic variation of the black bear - the pure white Kermode or "Spirit" bear. Old-growth forests provide prime habitat for bears and other large mammals. The Great Bear is internationally celebrated as a natural treasure, a storehouse of biological richness.

MAP 2 - In 2001, as part of the first step in the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement, 20 large, intact valley complexes in the Great Bear Rainforest were slated for protection from logging and development. It was agreed that these candidate Protection Areas should be designated without prejudice to First Nations rights and title. An additional 68 large valleys and key ecological areas were placed under moratoria from logging until informed decisions could be made on how to best manage the land. The official government term for these moratoria lands was "Option Areas", but they were also called "Deferral Areas, " as in the map above. In 2001, both Protection Areas and Option Areas were formalized through Orders In Council giving them interim protection from development. The designations in the map above have now been replaced with the outcomes of the LRMP process.

photos: Adrian Dorst (banner), Scott Rehmus (centre)