A MESSAGE FROM THE FOUNDER: THE POWER OF ONE. UNITED AS ONE VOICE
The greatest gift my parents ever gave me was the gift of travel. We didn’t visit the exotic wonders of the world or the sunny beaches of Mexico or Hawaii, but every summer we would pack up our car and drive - across Canada, to Alaska, through the American Southwest. Each of these trips allowed for my young and curious mind to learn all about the forgotten gems in our own North American backyard. On one such trip, our final stop was Yellowstone National Park - an untouched wilderness in northwestern Wyoming. It was there that I saw my first wild bear - a mother grizzly with two cubs - in a meadow almost a mile from the road. It was a stunning sight that captured my imagination and my curiosity. A passion was born.
The news was served up every evening with dinner in my family and it was during one such news cast that I saw a story about the Kodiak bears in Alaska and the plans that were being drawn up that would threaten their future. When I heard the news, in my seven-year-old mind I thought that it was an assult on the very same bears I had just seen in Yellowstone and I was determined to help. My parents were hardly activists, but when I asked what I could do, they suggested writing letters or raising money - I decided to do both. Like any seven-year-old growing up in Vancouver, lemonade stands were a staple of my summer months, so it made perfect sense to have a lemonade stand that would raise money for the Kodiak bears. I raised $60 and wrote letters to then-Prime Minister Brain Mulroney and then-President George Bush Sr.
Two months after my first foray into the world of ’activism’, I received a letter in the mail announcing that the Kodiak bears were saved. To my seven-year-old mind, it was my $60 and two letters that saved them. Although, looking back, clearly that wasn’t the case, what was important was that I felt that my voice had been heard. Thanks to everyone who did the same, we collectively did save the Kodiak bears. That was the most important lesson I ever learned: one person no matter their age, no matter where they live can make a difference for all life. It was a gift of hope - that I could do the same thing for other animals, for other issues. And it was a powerful tool that would allow me to overcome the many roadblocks that I would soon face in my quest to save another bear, in a campaign that has come to define the majority of my young life.
A QUEST TO SAVE THE SPIRIT BEAR
The journey from a middle school letter writing campaign to Hollywood movie has been remarkable and humbling - but began with that belief in a single, but powerful idea. The journey began with a leap of faith in the belief of what we can accomplish together - business and non-profits, young people and adults.
When I embarked on this campaign, I was a 13-year-old grade 8 student with a fear of public speaking and no connections in the world, but my desire to save the bear overrode my fear. I began by looking through a phone book and contacting everyone I thought might have some insight on this issue - and the more I learned from all sides, the more I realized how badly this bear needed a voice. I felt the best chance I had at uniting people to help save the spirit bear was the group I was able to relate to most closely - my peers. I stuttered my way through speeches to every English class in my school and by the end of the day, I collected 700 letters to mail to then-BC Premier, Glen Clark, in support of saving the spirit bear. But when a form letter came to me in the mail a few months later, I realized that it would take a lot more to save the bears - yet I was undeterred, as the lemonade stand when I was 7 proved to me that with a loud enough voice, anything was possible.
When I founded the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition, it was one of the first all youth-run organizations in Canada and the first involved in this issue. Although at first I felt young people would be the only demographic I would be able to mobilize for the spirit bear, I began to realize that engaging young people, in and of itself, was critical. To often decisions are made that directly affect the future of today’s youth - the future stewards of our land - without any input from youth. As important as it was to give the spirit bear a strong voice at the decision making table, it was equally important to have meaningful representation from young people at the decision making table - to give young people hope, to capture their imagination, and to provide new insight on long staled issues. The Youth Coalition continues to prove that when any young person, from any walk of life stands up and are counted on the issues they care about, they can make a difference for all life. It is this achievement that gives me the most pride.
A NEW APPROACH TO ENVIRONMENTALISM
From the early years, the Youth Coalition was ground breaking. I didn’t want to become a career activist, nor did I want the organization to become an activist business - I wanted to create a one issue organization with one clear goal that in turn presented the public with a new brand of environmentalism. Equipped with a campaign built on addressing the economics of the issue and, even as a 13-year-old, always attending meetings and presentations in a suit, we were able to break through preconceived notions and with our disparate network, prove that the environment is not only an issue of the left, but the centre and right as well.
My challenge, in starting the organization, was four fold: as a young person, I had to prove that my message should be taken seriously; I had to educate the public that this was a real bear and in desperate need of protection; I had to show BC that this issue was not trees vs. jobs, but about creating new solutions that would meet the triple bottom line; and I had to deal with the consequences of not being ’cool’ and the resulting hell that was my early high school years. However, I believe strongly that if you believe in your message and stay the course, no challenge is insurmountable.
Every morning, I would wake at 6 am in order to listen to the news and read the papers, with the hope that there would be a story that could aid our efforts. One morning, I heard on the radio that Prince William was going to be in Vancouver and I knew immediately that we had to gain his support. I bussed down to one of his public appearances only to find, literally, hundreds of screaming girls waving roses and asking for the Prince’s hand in marriage. Amongst those screaming girls was me - waving a book on the spirit bear, yelling to grab the Prince’s attention. A sudden silence took hold of the screaming girls - I’m sure people were wondering what in the world I was shouting. That gave me the opportunity to out shout that masses and capture the attention of Prince William - and the media’s. He took an interest in what I had to say and offered his support for our efforts.
My encounter with the Prince proved to me that we could reach and gain the support of anyone in the world. I was 15 years old at the time and had no power or influence in the world. Yet I was able to speak with, arguably, one of the most powerful individuals on the planet - and if I could reach Prince William, who else could I reach? I learned, that if you don’t ask, you don’t get - so I started asking everyone who would listen.
CATCHING THE SPIRIT…
In April of 2000, people really started listening. I was selected as one of Time Magazine’s sixty Heroes for the Planet - one of only six young people chosen from around the world. It wasn’t that I was a hero - I wasn’t, but what this honour did was give credibility to the spirit bear campaign and it gave credibility to the youth movement that was working to give the spirit bear a voice. Over night this issue went from a middle school letter writing campaign to a broad-based global issue.
Every success I’ve had on behalf of the spirit bear and the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition is a credit to every single young person who has stood up and made their voice heard on this issue. The campaign to save this bear has brought together disparate young people - from the apathetic teenager in New York City to the isolated student in rural Klemtu, British Columbia to the voiceless child in the war-torn suburbs of Baghdad, Iraq - and united them to give voice to a creature that did not have one. The Spirit Bear Youth Coalition has created the largest youth-led environmental network on the planet with an audience of more than 6 million with supporters in every province in Canada, every state in the USA, and in more than 60 countries around the world.
The efforts of the Youth Coalition and our united voice, in part, have helped take a rare bear numbering fewer than 400 from the wilderness of public awareness to the forefront of boardrooms, cabinet meetings and the public eye. What began with 700 hundred letters from a middle school in Vancouver has gone on to become the most supported conservation initiative in Canadian history - a campaign that generated more letters to the BC government than any other, according to Statistics Canada. And, according to Time Magazine in 1999, the plight of the spirit bear is one of the most important environmental issues facing our planet today.
…SAVING THE BEAR
With support from the likes of Dr. Jane Goodall, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., J.K. Rowling, Nickelback, and even the Backstreet Boys, the pressure on the BC government to act on this issue mounted with each additional letter mailed. On April 4th 2001, the Youth Coalition helped bring the First Nations, industry, environmental groups, and other interested stakeholders to the table with the BC government to sign a precedent setting land-use agreement for the BC coast. It created a framework to save the spirit bear - setting aside half of their endangered habitat, with deferring development in the other half while negotiations continued. The agreement went on to look at the entire BC coast, what has become known as the Great Bear Rainforest, setting aside additional protected areas and sought the end to the environmentally and economically destructive practice of clear-cut logging. When all was said and done, not only was it amongst the first consensus land-use deals, it was the largest land protection measure in the history of North America.
However, after April 4th came a new government and 9/11 - and then it seemed the spirit bear dropped completely from the radar screen. We had the challenge at that point to find a way to reignite the passion of our supporters, regain the interest of the policy makers, and do this all the while trying to find a mechanism to raise the money needed to address the economic concerns associated with protecting the remaining deferred habitat that the spirit bear so desperately needed saved. After considerable hard work, the prospect of our Hollywood movie, coupled with other initiatives, is helping meet these objectives. But the only way we can save the spirit bear - truly for generation after generation - is if every person stands up and is counted on this issue.
For years, students would approach me and say: Simon, I’m one person, if I don’t bother to write a letter, I won’t make a difference. And to that I would answer - you’re right. If you don’t make your voice heard, you won’t make a difference. No one will know what you think. But if every person, said, ’yes, I can make a difference, I will do my part, I will make my voice heard’. Think if everyone believed that. We were able to get this message through to enough people - so as each person sat down and wrote a letter, a friend or family member would as well, and soon 25, 000 letters from young people alone, were pouring into the Premier’s office in the months leading up to our first land-use agreement in 2001. Soon the message had legs. After all, it was one of
those letter
s that the Premier finally picked up and said: ’what are we going to do about the spirit bear’. It was one person who put the issue over the top and it took each of those 24, 999 people to make it happen. It is the power of one, united as one voice.
A MECHANISM OF HOPE
Our campaign has not been about solidifying the base or preaching to the converted - but reaching the unconverted. That’s been the irresistible challenge: to show each and every person that with a simple choice, such as what movie to see on the weekend, they can create a better world. Thus to inspire a world to care about a bear and raise the money needed to help communities diversify from one-industry towns, to broad based, community driven economies without burdening the tax payer, presents one obvious opportunity - especially to an organization that is run by youth with a mandate to engage youth. We know the movie will save the bear and we know it will change the world, not because the threat to the spirit bear is the most important issue facing our world today, but because it is an undeniable mechanism for hope.
If together we can succeed in saving the spirit bear, we will have succeeded in something far greater, we will have been able to prove that a young person with no remarkable skills, or intellect, but simply with a passion, can take hold of a cause and unite the world.
Today, we must illustrate that the greatest sin is not trying and that by trying, together - as one voice - our dreams are possible and our missions are most certainly winnable. Because we are the voices for the sick, the poor, the children, the dreamers…and the bears. It is our most important endeavor and our greatest tool for a better tomorrow. For me, it begins by saving this undeniably, irreplaceable bear for generation after generation and when we do, we can all say with pride, the spirit bear will forever be wild and free.
Simon Jackson is the founder and Executive Director of the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition and Executive Producer of The Spirit Bear.
