Ian McAllister

A one-hour documentary about the breathtaking beauty of British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest, and its imminent destruction by the logging industry. The two-million hectare Great Bear Wilderness is the largest intact area of ancient temperate rain forest remaining in the world. A small but dedicated group of people, working through a handful of grass-roots organizations, are lined up against forces determined to destroy the integrity of this unique biological wellspring. Only 0.2 percent of all the land on Earth ever supported temperate rain forest. Half of that is already gone. A quarter of what is left is in British Columbia. Of the province's original 353 rainforest watersheds, only 69 are intact. What remains are under direct threat by commercial interests. Logging companies, armed with permits from the government responsible for British Columbia, intend to reap this natural resource by using totally-destructive, clear-cut logging techniques over the next 5-10 years. The forests are being logged primarily for export to the United States, Japan, and Europe. The documentary features spectacular and extremely rare footage of the Kermode bear, also known as the Spirit Bear (more rare than the Chinese Panda). It is a very rare sub-species of black bear that has pure white and can only be found in The Great Bear Rainforest. We meet the First Nation people that have called the rain coast home for a thousand generations, consider the land a sacred living temple, nature's gift to humanity. The documentary tells the story through the eyes of the Academy-award nominated actor, James Cromwell. Through his visit to this area, we connect with the magnificent beauty of The Great Bear Wilderness. A rich coastal marine environment combined with a mild, humid climate makes this area a true natural paradise. We see splendid roaring waterfalls, meadows carpeted with wildflowers, moss-covered stands of ancient trees, and rocky unspoiled coastlines. From up close, we watch grizzlies, eagles, black bears, and a pack of grey wolves fatten themselves on salmon that fill watershed streams in Summer, and early Fall. The temperate rainforest on the West Coast of British Columbia in Canada, has been characterized as the most biologically productive land on Earth. Thousand year old cedar trees, along with Douglas Fir, and Sitka Spruce nearly three hundred feet tall, reign over a landscape that is home to thousands of species of plants, birds, insects, and other animals. Streams that teem with salmon returning to spawn support well-fed populations of grizzly bears, orca, whales, black bears, and eagles. The Great Bear Rainforest documentary is a warning beacon revealing the imminent threat to one of Earth's most important biological treasures.