Private land within Great Bear Rainforest donated to Nature Conservancy

A vast track of land about half the size of Stanley Park within British Columbia’s prized Great Bear Rainforest has been donated to the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

The four parcels of private waterfront land on British Columbia’s Central Coast include 185 hectares of ecologically significant old-growth forests and estuaries.

The Conservancy says the area supports some of the most dense populations of black and grizzly bears in the province, along with the white kermode or spirit bear.

The newly conserved parcels are part of the world’s largest coastal temperate rainforest and include the Gullchucks Estuary, Spider Island, and the Geldala and Kiidiis shores that sit opposite of Rivers Inlet.

On Monday, Premier Christy Clark also announced the Great Bear Rainforest will be endorsed under the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy initiative aimed to conserve forests around the globe.

Already, 85 per cent of the Great Bear Rainforest’s 6.4 million hectares are conserved, while the remaining area is used for logging.