Great Bear Rainforest
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Great Bear Rainforest is a Pacific temperate rain forest located in Southwestern British Columbia, Canada.
Coastal rainforests are characterized by having proximity to both oceans and forest. The offshore ocean flow into the mountain ranges causes abundant precipitation to fall on the land in between the mountains and the ocean.
The Great Bear rainforest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unspoiled temperate rainforest left in the world. A February 2006 agreement between the provincial government and a wide coalition of conservationists, loggers, hunters, and First Nations established a park stretching 250 miles along the coast. The protected land of the park will contain 4.4 million acres (18,000 km²), twice the size of Yellowstone, and another 11.6 million acres (46,900 km²) that is to be run under a management plan that will ensure sustainable forestry.
The area is home to hundreds of species, including cougars, wolves, salmon, grizzly bears, and the Kermode ("spirit") bear, a unique white subspecies of the black bear.
[edit] External links
- British Columbia's Rainforests Essays by Elmer G. Wiens.
- Great Bear Rainforest digital photo essay from The Nature Conservancy
