Bella Coola is a small, remote and isolated community with an understandably independent spirit. With a high dependence on forest resources, whether for water quality, wildlife habitat, scenic beauty, food or timber, it has been a long standing goal for the community to gain management control of the surrounding forest. After many years of lobbying, in 2007, the Bella Coola Resource Society (BCRS) was successful in achieving this goal when the Province issued a Community Forest Agreement (CFA) to the BCRS. Through the CFA, local people are empowered to manage the forest to meet community goals and aspirations.
The Bella Coola CFA is a long term, 25 year licence with a sustainable rate of harvest of 30,000 cubic meters per year. This equates to approximately 850 logging trucks. Operating a Community Forest requires professional management and there are substantial financial, social and environmental liabilities, so BCRS created Bella Coola Community Forest Ltd (BCCFL) to run the Community Forest in a spirit of cooperation and in balance with the community’s environmental, social and economic goals.
The map below shows the location of the Community Forest in red outline.
Click the map below to download the pdf version.
