Tides Canada Foundation Celebrates Great Bear Rainforest Campaign Success and Honours Donors

VANCOUVER, BC – Tides Canada Foundation will be honouring donors to its successful Great Bear Rainforest Campaign in special events in Vancouver, Toronto, and Calgary.  

Donors, led by the North Growth Foundation, which pledged $1 million, Endswell Foundation, Royal Bank of Canada, The Mark Torrance Foundation, and The Young Fund – Hamilton Community Foundation, and others, contributed $4 million to complete Tides Canada’s fundraising campaign.

Together with major international philanthropic foundations and non-profits including the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Wilburforce Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and The Nature Conservancy, Tides Canada’s donors contributed a total of $60 million in private funding to help ensure a healthy future for the Great Bear Rainforest.  

The private contributions, combined with $60 million committed by the governments of Canada and British Columbia, will create two funds totalling $120 million to support conservation management and sustainable economic development in First Nations communities in the region.

“The success of Tides Canada’s campaign would not have been possible without the vision and commitment of all our donors to this pioneering model for long-term sustainability,” said Ross McMillan, President of Tides Canada Foundation, and one of the principal architects of the $120 million conservation financing project. “While we celebrate completing the initial campaign, our work in the Great Bear Rainforest continues. Tides Canada will provide future support to conservation organizations and First Nations for the successful implementation of land use agreements and ecosystem-based management.”

About The Great Bear Rainforest
Representing twenty-five percent (25 %) of the Earth’s remaining ancient coastal temperate rainforests, the Great Bear Rainforest is a global environmental treasure. It is also a vital cultural and economic resource for British Columbia’s coastal First Nations and other communities.

Until recently, the Great Bear Rainforest was a threatened wilderness. But on February 8, 2006, after over a decade of exceptionally hard work, an unprecedented alliance among environmental groups, First Nations, logging companies and governments marked a landmark event in modern conservation. The Province of British Columbia and coastal First Nations announced long-awaited land use agreements that protect at least 5 million acres of the rainforest from logging and place more than 18 million acres under an ecologically sensitive new land management framework known as ecosystem-based management.

Tides Canada led the Canadian fundraising initiative to aid the implementation of land use agreements and to promote sustainability in the Great Bear Rainforest. The foundation and its partners also supported early coalition building and scientific research that contributed to the agreements.

About Tides Canada Foundation
As Canada’s first and only national public foundation focused on the environment and social justice, Tides Canada works with forward-looking donors to amplify the impact of their giving. For more information about Tides Canada Foundation and the Great Bear Rainforest campaign please visit http://tidescanadafoundation.org/greatbear/.