Bears Matter
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Saturday, 04 September 2010 01:14 |
Friday 3rd September 2010
Between now and September 14, the iLCP and a group of internationally renowned photographers are taking part in a RAVE (Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition) in British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest. Home to white spirit bears, ancient forests, and stunning marine biodiversity, it is one of the planet's most priceless treasures, but overseas oil interests wanting access to western Canada's tar sands, the second largest known oil reserves in the world, have put the region in threat, prompting the action of conservation groups and the iLCP. Throughout the expedition we'll be bringing you profiles, stories, statistics and photos to learn more about the region and why it's so crucial that we all work to protect it. Please follow along here on the iLCP blog, on Facebook and Twitter.
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iLCP's Jenny Nichols reports from the field...
For lack of a better cultural reference, I feel as if I’ve landed on the set of the movie Twilight. My niece would be looking over her shoulder for vampires and werewolves, however we’ve traveled to the Pacific coast of British Columbia to face an immensely more threatening danger — the proposed Enbridge pipeline that will carry crude oil from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada to the coast of the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia. The creation of this pipeline is destructive for the ecosystem and the First Nations and wildlife that call it home, and it will also lead to a massive increase in tanker traffic.
After a semi bumpy 2-hour flight from Vancouver into Prince Rupert, I landed on a tiny fog-cloaked island off of Prince Rupert. Dave, who I sat next to on the plane, explains that now we take a bus and a ferry to the island of Prince Rupert. In Prince Rupert, everything is moving in sweet slow motion, no one is in a hurry, no one is stressed, and everything is running smoothly. The effect was refreshing. I slipped effortlessly out of my autopilot travel mode, and started to look around. The air traffic control personnel knew almost all of the passengers getting off the plane, the baggage handlers passed my bag with a gesture that was similar to a handshake. The crowd slowly rolled onto the sidewalk outside the one-roomed airport and waited for the bus to start loading. I assumed that we would heave our luggage under the bus, but then realized there were no compartments. An open backed moving truck backs up and started to load our luggage. With our gear safely stowed in the truck, we got on the bus and took off for the ferry. I sat next to Dave again on the bus because it’s not entirely clear where I would meet my good friends and colleagues Trevor Frost and Joe Riis who are already in Prince Rupert preparing for the Great Bear Rainforest RAVE.
Photo courtesy Cristina Mittermeier, iLCP
As we drove onto the ferry, Dave started to tell me about the wood mill on Prince Rupert that shut down about 8 years ago.
“Its why I moved here,” he comments and in the same breath mentions that the population has gone from something like 20,000 to 10,000 in just 8 years because of the lack of jobs. He thinks the main reason for the plant closing down was that the new environmental standards were too expensive to implement.
As an avid conservationist I am torn at this comment.
Part of me rejoices, as I look out over this incredible landscape where water and terrestrial habitat seem to converge with such grace. I secretly celebrate the fact that these trees will not end up as woodchips and 2x4s. However, Dave is clearly pained by this occurrence and the economy of Prince Rupert has clearly suffered enormously. I don’t know what the answer is in Prince Rupert, however I do know that conservation has to involve and empower the local communities to succeed. So often conservation movements and conservation groups are perceived as being the voice that says, “no, you can’t do that.” We need to turn that around and be the voice that says, “yes!” Yes you can be stewards of the land. Yes! This pristine landscape is still here because you protected it. Yes! You can still kayak along the Pacific Coast of BC and see whales, orcas and bald eagles. Yes, there is still a lot of work to do, but yes, there is also still time to make the right choice.
The International League of Conservation Photographers and partners strive to make that choice obvious by telling the story of the Great Bear Rainforest through imagery and video. To help bring attention to the people living in the Great Bear Rainforest whose voices are not being heard. To show how imperative it is to protect this unique place and how together the people of Canada and the global community can stop this proposed pipeline and avoid an increase in tanker traffic that could destroy and ecosystem and a way of life.
So, how can you help? Here are three simple ways for you to support the work of iLCP and raise awareness about the threats facing the Great Bear Rainforest. Together, we can protect this precious ecosystem and the communities that live there!
1. Give! Support iLCP and the Great Bear RAVE
2. Take Action! Keep Oil Tankers Out of Great Bear
3. Tell the Story! Tell your friends, your family, your neighbors! Post stories from Great Bear on your own blog, on Facebook and Twitter!
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Saturday, 04 September 2010 01:04 |
From Whale Passage
Thursday 2nd September 2010
When Ian McAllister invited me to a RAVE in the Great Bear Rainforest I imagined strobe lights, trance music and people spinning beneath a September sunset on the beach of some outer coast island. I soon learned that RAVE stands for Rapid Assessment Visual Exploration, the brainchild of Mexican-born, Arlington, Virginia-based photographer Cristina Mittermeier who launched the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP) three years ago. The goal of the iLCP is to harness the evocative power of the photograph to galvanize public and political support around critical conservation issues, using tools like RAVEs, which are “swat” teams of photographers that are deployed to areas in need of media attention. For the iLCP’s 9th RAVE, Mittermeier and McAllister has assembled some of the world’s leading nature photographers in Hartley Bay, the community of the Gitga’at First Nation. In two weeks of intense shooting they will document the profound dependence of the First Nation on marine resources, the rainforest, inlets, and islands, the terrestrial and marine carnivores, the dazzling marine invertebrates and all the myriad other species and ecosystems at threat by the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline connecting the environmentally destructive Alberta tar sands with B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest.
The team includes some of the world’s most acclaimed photojournalists, including a number of National Geographic Magazine contributors, such as American Pulitzer prize winner and master landscape photographer Jack Dykinga and Canadian World Press award-winner Paul Nicklen. Also along for this unprecedented photo documentation of the Great Bear Rainforest are Spanish aerial photographer and winner of the Prince’s Rainforest Prize, Daniel Beltra (who has just returned from covering the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster), globetrotting underwater specialist and chief photographer for the Save Our Seas Foundation, South African Tom Peschak, German born wildlife photographer Florian Schulz, Mittermeier herself, and many others.
On a September morning, I’m sitting in a boat cruising north through Whale Passage with Peschak and a CTV film crew. To the west the mountaintops of Princess Royal Island disappear into the mist. To the east lies the rugged shoreline of Gil Island, not far from where the Queen of the North plowed into the rocks four years ago. The sea is choppy and the humpback whales are busy. These great, mysterious animals slap the water playfully with barnacle covered fins, their long backs visible in glistening black arcs. Occasionally their tail flukes appear above the surface then disappear, indicating a long dive or a spectacular breach, in an aerial ballet almost inconceivable for a 20 tonne mammal. In less than an hour, we spot at least 12 humpbacks. Earlier in the day Janie Wray and Hermann Mueter of Cetacea Lab told us that humpbacks have been returning to these waters in amazing numbers to feed. In 2004 they counted 40 individuals; during the 2008/2009 season the couple identified 180 humpbacks. Jeopardizing this ecosystem with ships carrying oil to fuel an economic juggernaut that is unsustainable seems ludicrous. Enbridge’s pipeline could see more than 300 supertankers a year plying the narrow channels and navigating the reefs to and from Douglas Channel and the deepwater port at Kitimat. Oil spills are a reality – a failed Enbridge pipeline in Michigan dumped crude oil into the Kalamazoo River this past summer. BP’s devastation of the Gulf of Mexico will be difficult to calculate. And Alaska’s Prince William Sound still recovers from the 40 million litre -plus Exxon Valdez disaster of 20 years ago. Then there’s the very real threat of whale strikes and the intrusion of engine noise on a subsurface acoustic environment where humpbacks and Orcas communicate in a complex sonic language. It is here in the Pacific Northwest that humpbacks have also developed an ingenious feeding culture known as bubble-net feeding, a deftly choreographed sequence of movement that traps fish like pilchard and herring allowing the whales to scoop up mouthfuls of life-sustaining protein.
Sometimes a fresh perspective helps reinforce what’s at stake if we fail to protect the earth’s few remaining pristine places like the Great Bear Rainforest where a full suite of terrestrial and marine prey and predator still exist in a subtle balance; this is the potential power of the RAVE. For photographer and marine biologist Tom Peschak, who travels 300 days a year and has documented the undersea world from the Seychelles to the Cape of Good Hope, visiting the Great Bear Rainforest for the first time is a dream come true. Ever since seeing a documentary on the region 20 years ago at the age of fifteen, well before picking up his first camera, he has been captivated by the B.C. coast.
“Coastal margins around the world are the first places to be developed. The Great Bear Rainforest is one of the last places on earth where you have a terrestrial wilderness that extends from the mountains to the tide line,” Peschak tells me as we scan the water for more signs of whale spouts. “This place is truly an international treasure.”
Peschak’s passion is the wilderness that lies beneath the waves, and that especially rich margin where the inter-tidal zone of sea stars, anemones and urchins meets the temperate rainforest. And that’s where he’ll be spending much of the next 10 days, submerged in 8 C water, wearing a 5 mm wetsuit, gloves, boots and a neoprene hoodie, his camera and strobe lights encased in sophisticated watertight housing.
“Not everyone has the means, time or ability to visit places like this so the next best thing is through photos and words. That’s why we’re here,” Peschak says.
Andrew Findley
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Tuesday, 31 August 2010 18:32 |
Starting NOW.....International Attention will be brought to BC's Great Bear Rainforest and all that is threatened there by proposed Oil Tankers, Hydro Projects, Farmed Salmon, Trophy Hunting, etc..... Please read and stay tuned for a busy Sept/Oct in the Great Bear Rainforest! Cheers, BM
 Photo courtesy Ian McAllister, iLCP
Between now and September 14, the iLCP and a group of internationally renowned photographers are taking part in a RAVE (Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition) in British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest. Home to white spirit bears, ancient forests, and stunning marine biodiversity, it is one of the planet's most priceless treasures, but overseas oil interests wanting access to western Canada's tar sands, the second largest known oil reserves in the world, have put the region in threat, prompting the action of conservation groups and the iLCP. Throughout the expedition we'll be bringing you profiles, stories, statistics and photos to learn more about the region and why it's so crucial that we all work to protect it. Please follow along on the iLCP blog, on Facebook and Twitter.
Just like in many creative industries, the photography business is a competitive one. Why then, would some of the world's premiere photographers converge in the wilds of British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest? To save one of the planet's most priceless treasures. Photographers like Paul Nicklen, Florian Schultz, Daniel Beltra, Jack Dykinga and Cristina Mittermeier will take part in the iLCP's RAVE (Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition) of the area and tell the story of this incredible place and the people working to save it.
"The Great Bear Rainforest is an environmental treasure, and the international exposure that the iLCP is capable of generating will undoubtedly prove a clarion call for its protection," said Ian McAllister, Conservation Director for B.C. based Pacific Wild and recently nominated Associate of the iLCP. "We have everything to lose and very little to gain by allowing oil tankers on our coast."
Overseas oil interests want access to western Canada's tar sands — the second largest known oil reserves in the world — and have proposed the construction of a massive pipeline through the rain forest to get it.
Home to white spirit bears, ancient forests, and stunning marine biodiversity, iLCP's team of photographers will will showcase the immense ecological importance of western Canada's threatened rain forest and marine environment. The images and stories from the expedition members will be shared with international media and partner organizations and will be featured in a traveling exhibition across North America and Europe.
Enbridge Inc., the world's largest pipeline construction company (and the same one responsible for Michigan's oil spill) has proposed to open export markets for tar sands oil outside the United States — most notably China.
So, how do you go about that? Build a 1,200 km pipeline from Alberta's tar sands and British Columbia's north Pacific coast over more than 1,000 streams and rivers — including some of the world's largest salmon producing watersheds — and introduce super oil tankers (revoking an existing moratorium on large ships) to transport oil through the pristine waters of the Great Bear Rainforest.
"We support this effort to document the lands and seas of our traditional territory," states Ernie Hill Jr., Sn'axeed, Gitga'at Hereditary Eagle Chief. The indigenous First Nations who call this area home unanimously oppose this project. "Enbridge's pipeline and oil tanker proposal will destroy our way of life and we must do everything possible to show what we stand to lose."
Learn more about the Great Bear Rainforest RAVE. Go To: www.pacificwild.org
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