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Power
of One:
The REAL Simon Jackson Story
©
D. Simon Jackson
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
Hawaii. For several years when I was very young, we would pack
up our car and drive, across Canada, to Alaska, through the American
Southwest. On one such trip when I was seven, our final stop was
Yellowstone National Park, an untouched wilderness in north-western
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. Some seven-year-olds
are fascinated by the sight of a train or a plane. Seeing those
bears captured my imagination and sparked my curiosity. A passion
was born.
The
Beginnings
As my father
was a journalist, watching the evening news was a constant in
my life. One evening, I saw a story about the Kodiak bear in Alaska
and the planned developments-logging, road building, a resort-that
would threaten their habitat. When I heard the news, my brewing
interest for bears boiled over and I was determined to help. My
parents were hardly activists, but when I asked them what I could
do, they suggested writing letters or raising money, so I decided
to do both. As for any seven-year-old growing up in Vancouver,
lemonade stands were a staple of my summer months, so it made
perfect sense to me to sell lemonade to raise money for the Kodiak
bear. 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 bear was saved.
To my seven-year-old mind, it was my $60 and two letters that
saved them. Though that clearly wasn't the case, it was true that
thanks to everyone who also cared about the issue, we collectively
did save the Kodiak bear. That was the most important lesson I
ever learned: that one person-no matter their age, no matter where
they lived-could make a difference for all life. Knowing this
has been a powerful tool that allowed me to overcome the many
roadblocks I would soon face in my quest to save another bear-a
rare white bear that lived only in my home province of British
Columbia-in a campaign that's come to define the majority of my
young life.
The
First Step
 The
spirit bear, also known as the white Kermode, is a genetically
unique subspecies of the black bear that lives in the temperate
rainforest of BC's north central coast. Over the past hundred
years, settlements and resource extraction robbed this bear of
a large portion of its home, leaving one last ecosystem as the
last chance to ensure the spirit bear's future.
I knew I had
to help. I began by challenging the students at my school to write
letters. At first, I was shy and I hated public speaking, but
I knew I had to get over my fear if I were to be an effective
force on behalf of the bears. Ultimately, I achieved some success-I
was able to catch the imagination of enough students, collecting
700 letters of support that were mailed to British Columbia's
premier at the time, Glen Clark. A few months later, I received
the premier's reply. Disappointingly, it made no promises and
offered no hope that his government would save the spirit bear.
I was shocked. Thinking back to my lemonade stand and how my sixty
dollars and two letters helped save the Kodiak bear, I wondered
how 700 letters couldn't save the spirit bear. But of course,
I realized, the letters had made the government aware of the issue,
but to take action it still needed to see widespread support.
I began by
writing letters to the editors of local papers and challenging
other schools to get involved. But I knew that to engage more
people, I would need to become an expert. The easiest way for
a thirteen-year-old to learn more about a public-policy issue,
I thought, would be by contacting every organization, business,
government agency, educational institution, and individual named
in past articles on the bear. I wanted to understand the issue
from both sides to present a balanced case as to why this bear
needed to be protected-I wanted to stress that there were no "bad
guys" in this campaign and that everyone, on all sides of
the issue, could embrace the protection of the region.
A
Youth Coalition
As support
started to grow, so too did the number of young people who wanted
to do more than write letters. I found that with every school
talk that I gave, young people wanted to belong to something-anything-that
would respect their role in the campaign and provide the spirit
bears with a loud, distinct voice in the fight to save them. So
one afternoon, over my mother's hamburgers and chocolate cake,
I asked a few friends - including Salimah Ebrahim, the current
Chair of the organization - for their help in creating an organization,
a group we named the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition. Most importantly,
we wanted to engage the unengaged-to show people who normally
wouldn't support an environmental cause why they could support
this one.
Obviously,
starting an organization was easier said than done. We built it
slowly-starting with young people from the North Shore of Vancouver
where I grew up and expanding outwards, signing up people at every
event in which we were allowed to participate. In fact, on many
occasions we weren't invited, we simply showed up when we thought
the audience might be interested in our message. We would hand
out one-page information sheets and attempt to collect as many
names and addresses as possible. And while we were growing, I
knew we needed a more powerful voice to help us spread our message
and catch the media's attention.
Every morning
I would wake up at 6 am to read the papers and listen to the radio
to see if anything was happening that day in Vancouver that could
help my efforts. One day 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 hundreds of screaming teenage girls waving roses
and asking for the Prince's hand in marriage. I made my way though
the crowd-waving a book on the spirit bear and yelling. 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 chance
to talk to Prince William in front of the media. He was interested
in what I told him and offered me his support.
Of course,
the best part was seeing the Premier pacing a few meters away,
fretting about our conversation. But there were two much more
powerful lessons I learned that spring day. First, I was a fifteen-year-old
kid with no power, no influence and no connections-yet I was able
to speak with one of the best-known people in the world. I realized
if I could reach the Prince, I could reach anyone, for if you
don't ask, you don't get. Second, I'd wondered if the Prince would
actually care about a bear that lived only in B.C., but quickly
understood that while the Panda bear lives only in China, we all
care about its future. The spirit bear may live only in British
Columbia, but it's Canada's Panda bear-a global treasure whose
place on the planet every single person the world over could and
should care about safeguarding.
Challenges
I believe
that every campaign-much like life-is 99% hard work and 1% good
luck. My efforts ran into roadblocks every step of the way. Teachers
didn't want their students getting engaged in politics. My parents
were nervous about how this campaign would affect my studies.
I lost my friends, not because they didn't support me, but because
saving a bear was different. And in high school different isn't
always cool. It was hell-I was bullied every day from the moment
I walked into my school, leaving me forced to eat lunch by myself
in the washroom. And when I got home, I had deal with the politics
of saving the spirit bear.
Anyone-especially
a teenage kid-trying to change public policy in British Columbia
on any issue affecting the forest industry in the 1990's was facing
an uphill battle. We weren't anti-logging and we weren't out to
put people out of a job-in fact, our campaign message was built
on balance. We wanted to protect the minimum area of land needed
to protect the bear's gene pool, while at the same time addressing
the local economic concerns associated with conservation. We believed
that logging elsewhere, coupled with investment into economic
diversification ventures in conservation-based industries, would
create a vibrant economy that would far surpass any planned logging
in the spirit bear's habitat. Yet in a province known for its
vicious politics, thoughtful debate was sidelined by rhetoric-filled
sound bites. Young people's views were dismissed as irrelevant.
Our message was met with skeptics and the occasional threat, making
a tough campaign even tougher.
Every morning
when my alarm would go off and it would be raining outside, I
would think to myself, why do I want to get out of bed today?
Why do I want to go to school and be bullied? Why would I want
to tackle the ugly politics of this issue and face the skeptical
majority? And then I' remember: Five hundred kilometers north
of my home was a bear that didn't know what world it would wake
up to in the spring. It wasn't that I was the smartest or even
the best-equipped to help save this bear, but I was likely one
of its most passionate champions. By giving up, I'd be giving
up on this bear and I would have to be prepared to grow up in
a world where this bear might no longer exist. That wasn't something
I was willing to accept. So I kept going.
The
Turning of the Tides
Finally, our
one percent of good luck came knocking at my door, in the form
of Time Magazine selecting me as one of their 60 Heroes for the
Planet. I was one of only six young people from around the world
to receive this honour. I don't count myself as a hero and to
this day, I don't know how they found out about our campaign,
but the benefits of their recognition went way beyond having my
picture printed. It gave the Youth Coalition credibility, it proved
young people could make a difference, and it gave us a remarkable
platform to talk about the bears.
Shortly after
the Time article appeared, the fight to save the spirit bear went
from a high school letter-writing campaign to become a broad-based
global issue, bringing forestry companies, government agencies
(both local and provincial), First Nations representatives, environmental
groups, and the tourism industry to the negotiating table. This
in turn paved the way for an historic land-use agreement in 2001
that protected half of the spirit bear's last intact habitat and
deferred logging in the other half. It went on to create a framework
for conservation on the entire BC coast, which, when it was ratified
by the BC government on April 4 of that year, was labelled around
the world as historic and precedent-setting.
On February
7, 2006, almost five years later, the BC government made another
land-use decision that continued to work toward a sustainable
vision for the BC coast and the protection of the spirit bear.
But while two-thirds of this bear's habitat is now legally set
aside, a third remains more endangered today than ever before.
Despite all our campaign's successes, unless we protect that final
third-an area known as the Green watershed-we won't be able to
save the spirit bear. Some may say, with so much land set aside,
why push for more? Well, even though the bear's core habitat has
been saved, the watersheds that surround the area haven't been
safeguarded. Without protecting the Green, we run the risk of
what's called a swamping effect: the mass migration, due to logging,
of black bears that don't carry the spirit bear's unique gene
into the last stable population of bears that do carry the gene,
diluting the gene pool and over time causing the spirit bear to
gradually disappear.
Simply put,
protecting the watershed has always been our ecological bottom
line. Just as we would never ask government to run a budget deficit
to save the spirit bear, we cannot be asked to run an ecological
deficit in the last place this bear can call home. Saving the
spirit bear means saving the Green watershed. And with more support
for this issue than any other in Canadian history, we know we'll
save the Green, proving to every skeptical young person who lent
this bear their voice that they did make a difference. We will
always be able to say with confidence that our spirit bear will
forever be wild and free.
A
Mechanism of Hope
Today, our
network spans more than sixty countries and numbers more than
6 million, all working to protect the spirit bear's last intact
habitat. We've reunited the team responsible for Lion King to
help us produce The Spirit Bear, Hollywood's first major animated
movie that will also help protect its namesake. The movie is scheduled
for release in the spring of 2008, and a portion of every ticket
sold will go toward saving the spirit bear. We hope the profits
from the movie will allow us to invest in the economic potential
of isolated coastal communities that border the spirit bears'
habitat, creating new jobs in new sectors and show how saving
the spirit bear can be accomplished while addressing economic,
environmental, and social concerns.
I understand
that it isn't easy for everyone to speak in front of a crowd because
it wasn't easy for me. It's scary to stand amidst the skeptics,
and even more intimidating to push your own peers to challenge
the status quo. But I believe that our battle is one of personal
integrity and I've learned that it's our moral obligation to help
protect the defenseless. I believe strongly that if you're passionate
about your message and stay the course, no challenge is insurmountable.
At the foundation of the struggle to preserve the spirit bears,
as with most issues, is the generosity of the individual, the
volunteers and philanthropists, all of whom support the cause
and nourish it with hope.
For years,
students would approach me and say, "Simon, I'm only one
person, and if I don't bother to write a letter then it won't
make a difference." And to that I would answer: you're right!
If you don't make your voice heard, then 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!", then think of the possibilities. Twenty-five thousand
letters made their way into the Premier's office in the months
leading up to our first land-use agreement in 2001. I'd like to
think it was one of those letters 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 but it took all
the other letters to make it happen.
The
Power of One, United as One Voice
The story
of my journey from selling lemonade to helping produce a Hollywood
movie may seem, well, sensational enough for a Hollywood movie.
But there was nothing unique about my experiences. Anybody and
everybody could have done what I've been doing for any issue they
believe in-whether it's trying to protect a peregrine falcon's
nest in their neighborhood or trying to rid the world of cancer,
there are no insignificant endeavors. Every time someone stands
up to act to improve the lot of others, they are helping to create
a better world. I was driven by my passion and the good fortune
of knowing, thanks to my luck with the lemonade stand at the age
of seven that I could succeed. And 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. This is the power
of one, united as one voice.
Simon Jackson,
now 23, is the founder and Executive Director of the volunteer,
youth-run Spirit Bear Youth Coalition and is the Executive Producer
of THE SPIRIT BEAR - the forthcoming Hollywood CGI animated movie.
For his efforts, he has been named a Hero for the Planet by Time
Magazine and was the inspiration for a recent made-for-TV movie
- Spirit Bear: The Simon Jackson Story. Simon lives in Vancouver.
Spirit
Bear Youth Coalition
OAC Editor's
Note: A
special thank you to Simon Jackson for allowing us to publish
his message. He is an inspiration.
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please view the archives.
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