A portion of a grant to Nature United from the Bezos Earth Fund has been earmarked to protect forests in Clayoquot Sound, B.C., and throughout the Emerald Edge in Canada and the United States.

Nature United to support Indigenous leadership in Clayoquot Sound

A portion of a $100-million grant to Nature United from the Bezos Earth Fund has been earmarked to protect forests in B.C.’s Clayoquot Sound and throughout the so-called Emerald Edge region in Canada and the United States.

The Emerald Edge is the largest “intact coastal rainforest on Earth,” according to the Nature Conservancy, spanning 100 million acres through Washington, British Columbia and Alaska. The funds will be used to protect the forest and its capacity to store carbon and diminish planet-damaging emissions.

Nature United, the Torontobased affiliate of the conservancy, has said the money will also be used to “support efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of farming practices in Northwest India and curtail agriculture’s contribution to Delhi’s air pollution.”

Overall, the grant is set to advance “carbon sequestration” and Indigenous-led conservation work, according to the Monday news release.

“This funding from the Bezos Earth Fund will further accelerate our work leveraging nature’s potential and catalyzing groundbreaking science to tackle climate change,” Nature United executive director Hadley Archer said in the news release.

“Nature United is thrilled to scale our support of Indigenous leadership, expand the deployment of First Nations’ sustainable land-use vision for Clayoquot Sound, and advance nature-based climate solutions across the Emerald Edge. We’re grateful to the Bezos Earth Fund for their generosity in supporting this critical work.”

Nature United says it will help permanently “protect and advance” Indigenous management authority of over 100,000 hectares of old-growth forest, in partnership with First Nations in Vancouver Island’s Clayoquot Sound.

Historic anti-logging protests that led to the arrests of hundreds of environmentalists have previously taken place at the Clayoquot Sound rainforest, specifically in 1993.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos revealed the first grants from his Earth Fund on Monday, saying the $791 million (U.S.) it’s doling out to groups fighting climate change is “just the beginning of my $10 billion commitment to fund scientists, activists, NGOs, and others.”