For more than 15 years, we have been working our butts off to save the spirit bear. While we’ve accomplished a lot, today I am asking for your help to assist us in taking the final steps to reach our goal.

Together, our efforts have resulted in the enactment of the largest land protection measure in the history of North America – a framework that permanently protects two-thirds of the spirit bear’s last intact ecosystem. I thank you for contributing to the largest youth environment network in the world and the most supported conservation initiative in Canadian history. The size and scope of our network have attracted international awareness through at least one mainstream or online media story everyday for more than a decade.

But there is still much, much more to be done, if we are to safeguard the gene pool of this fragile and globally important subspecies.

1. We must create meaningful sanctuary for the spirit bear, including: a) protection for the remainder of the spirit bear’s last intact global ecosystem and b) abolishing the coastal bear trophy hunt.

2. We must shift the route of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline that will send oil tankers through spirit bear waters.

In the coming months, we are stepping up our efforts as the urgency to save this bear closes in. We need to make sure everyone is heard on this issue so, with your support, I personally commit to speaking to 500 schools and conducting 50 town halls. We want to engage hundreds of thousands of students globally by encouraging them to launch their own authentic and innovative social media campaigns to rally their peers on this issue. And we want to meet with every elected representative in British Columbia and Canada to ensure they know a balanced alternative is on the table that will save the bear without harming the economy.

But we can’t do it alone.

This holiday season, please consider making a donation of $50 to the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition. Each and every dollar makes a difference. You can make a donation online or by sending a cheque to PO Box 91933 W. Vancouver, BC V7V 4S4.

You have always responded generously and passionately to our pleas for help. The timing has never been more important. And we can’t accomplish the goals we’ve set without the support of each of you.

I thank you for your consideration, for your ongoing support, and for your compassion for the spirit bear.

All my best to you and your family this holiday season,

Simon
—
D. Simon Jackson
Founder and Chairman, Spirit Bear Youth Coalition
www.spiritbearyouth.org

A new report released today shines a light on the dangers associated with Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway project which would send massive oil tankers through spirit bear waters for the first time. The report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Pembina Institute and Living Oceans Society, has also been endorsed by nine British Columbia organizations.

Read the Vancouver Sun article on Pat Carney – a former Conservative senator from BC and a former Minister of Energy with the federal government – and her views on why the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline that will send oil tankers through the spirit bear’s habitat doesn’t make sense.

Read the Ottawa Citizen article that investigates why environmentalists succeeded in shifting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from a sensitive ecological region in Nebraska to a less harmful route – and what lessons can be learned by all parties working to decide the future of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline to the BC coast, a route that would send oil tankers through spirit bear waters.

With only a few days notice from the Canadian government, we asked you to sign-up to be heard at the upcoming federal government review panel on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline that would send oil tankers through the last intact habitat of the spirit bear.

And what a resounding response of support.

More than 4000 people – of all ages and from all corners of the globe – registered within 48 hours to give the spirit bear a voice at the decision making table. That’s a record-shattering seven times the number of people who have ever registered to be heard at previous review panels, making this outpouring of support the largest in Canadian history.

THANK YOU!

(Read more about the difference you’ve already made for the spirit bear.)

What’s next?

1. For those who registered to be heard, we will be in contact to help ensure your voice is indeed heard by the Canadian government at the upcoming review panel meetings that will go a long way toward deciding the fate of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline.

2. For those who were unable to register – and for those who did register – we are urging you to make your voice heard in a more traditional sense: Write BC Premier Clark and Canadian Prime Minister Harper and tell them why this pipeline route needs to be altered to save the spirit bear.

A Balanced Alternative

With the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to the USA having been at least temporarily shelved, increased pressure will be placed on decision makers to fast-track plans to build the Northern Gateway pipeline to the BC coast in order to find consumers for Alberta’s oil.

The Keystone pipeline was heralded as a “no-brainer”, but failed to receive approval for one critical reason: the proposed route was ecologically dangerous and the public made sure decision makers knew that the plan was simply unacceptable.

Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline proposal is fraught with considerably more risk to the environment than Keystone given plans to send oil tankers through treacherous waters in and around the highly endangered spirit bear’s last intact habitat. It will also likely garner considerably more opposition than Keystone considering already most British Columbians and almost every First Nation band along the proposed route oppose the pipeline.

However, like Keystone, a viable and reasonable alternative is available to Enbridge and decision makers.

A different route for Northern Gateway – in this case utilizing existing infrastructure and the polluted, less dangerous Port of Vancouver – would allow for oil exports, job creation, economic certainty without threatening the globally important spirit bear and the future of an area labelled by National Geographic as the last wild place in North America.

If the builders of the Keystone pipeline had simply heeded the public’s concern for their planned route, it is almost a certainty that the majority of the opposition would have melted away and the project would have been allowed to move forward.

Our challenge is to make sure Canadian decision makers and Enbridge executives are clear: the current plan for Northern Gateway won’t work and the reasonable alternative on the table must become the focus to ensure a repeat of the Keystone affair doesn’t occur in BC, for the sake of the economy and the future of the spirit bear.

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD TODAY.

Read the Vancouver Sun article that breaks down why the US decision to make no decision on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to America creates new pressure to build the proposed Enbridge pipeline to the BC coast – and oil tanker traffic through the spirit bear’s last intact habitat.

Read the Vancouver Sun article that looks into the role of First Nations in BC’s land-use planning process.

Spirit Bear Youth Coalition founder Simon Jackson will be speaking to high school students from across Fort McMurray – the heart of Alberta’s oil sands and the starting point of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline that would send crude oil to the BC coast and, ultimately, on tankers through spirit bear waters.

Jackson will be speaking at the annual youth empowerment conference put on by the Justin Slade Youth Foundation. His message of the power of one will aim to encourage students to take ownership of their community and world by taking a stand for the issues they care about – such as saving the spirit bear and altering the route of the proposed pipeline that threatens its future.

While in Fort McMurray, Jackson will also meet with local leaders to discuss the pipeline and advocate for the Youth Coalition’s balanced vision: environmental innovation for the oil sands, an alternative route for the proposed pipeline using existing infrastructure that still allows for critical exports, and a sanctuary for the spirit bear that does not burden any community or the Canadian economy.

Simon Jackson, founder of the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition, will be speaking to Magee Secondary School in Vancouver today.

Students and staff will hear Simon’s passionate message – the power of one – and learn how they too can become champion’s for BC’s own white Kermode or spirit bear.

If you’re interested in having Simon Jackson or the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition visit your school, send us an email today at letters@spiritbearyouth.org.

Send your letter to Premier Clark today voicing your support for saving the spirit bear.

Here is our open letter to Premier Clark:

Dear Premier Clark,

I’m writing to ask for your leadership to ensure the final needed steps are taken to create a sanctuary for BC’s spirit bear for BC’s families – and families around the world.

The white Kermode or spirit bear, as you know, is a genetically unique subspecies of the black bear that is unique only to BC’s central coast and numbers fewer than 400. This endangered bear plays a critical role in our world because of its colour, upholding through the nutrient cycle one of the largest land carbon sinks in the world.

Though remarkable progress has been made to ensure the future of the Kermode subspecies, two hurdles remain.

Less than 200 times the size of Vancouver’s Stanley Park, the Green-Sheep Passage/Tolmie Operating Area is the final, unprotected third of the spirit bear’s habitat: it must be protected in order to sustain the delicate ecological balance that produces this rare bear.

Additionally, while it is illegal to hunt the white Kermode bear, within 98% of its range, including protected areas, it is legal to hunt the black Kermode bear that carries and produces the unique white gene – a direct threat to the survival of the subspecies. The creation of a trophy hunting sanctuary for all bears is needed in this one area in order to maintain the genetic diversity of the population.

I know it is possible for logging and hunting to occur and the bear to survive; but it is equally possible that logging, combined with trophy hunting in this one area, will set in motion unintended, irreversible consequences that will, over a generation, lead to the extinction of the white bear.

I believe that when speaking of the very last chance to save a bear worth its weight in gold and critical to a globally important ecosystem, we must err on the side of caution, especially when a more viable economic alternative is available.

Conservatively, The Spirit Bear animated movie proposed by the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition is projected to be able to inject tens of millions of dollars into the region to help erase the human resource and infrastructure deficit that is widely believed to be preventing any hope of economic revitalization. The funds would exceed any bank loan, government hand-out, and potential profit from developing the ecosystem and allowing the coastal bear trophy hunt to continue.

The potential investment could build and sustain a viable tourism industry, develop the emerging sea shell aquaculture industry, create long-term conservation-based jobs, and launch a value-added, community-run forestry operation in areas other than this bear’s critical habitat. And then, off course, there is the ability to use the protected forest to offset carbon emissions – a multi-million dollar industry.

The Spirit Bear Youth Coalition has a track record of being positive, cooperative, engaged, and pragmatic; not one of being alarmists or dogmatic ideologues in addressing this issue. The movie has the potential to generate more profit for the affected First Nation community than logging in an area that amounts to .003% of the entire coast’s operating area, but development is money now.

Please work with all stakeholders to establish BC’s first major wildlife sanctuary, as desired by the Coastal First Nations, in order to safeguard all bears on the BC north-central coast from trophy hunting and, in the doing, help protect the Kermode gene pool.

Moreover, I ask that you help facilitate a dialogue with the appropriate stakeholders to identify a financial target for the CGI movie to meet that would, if successful, allow for the protection of the Green-Sheep Passage/Tolmie Operating Area and, thus, the spirit bear.

I know you have committed to creating a new era of civic engagement and consultation – and promised to put BC families first on your agenda. Creating a sanctuary for the spirit bear is a family values issue and supported by more than 85% of British Columbians. By taking the necessary leadership to protect the final unprotected third of the spirit bear habitat and stopping the coastal bear trophy hunt you will uphold the commitments you have made and create a legacy for all families the world over.

My thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely,

D. Simon Jackson
Founder and Chairman, Spirit Bear Youth Coalition