In April 2025, Caylin Sun visited Nuxalk Nation in the Great Bear Rainforest with our Climate Resilience team. They met with Nuxalk Coastal Guardian Watchmen, who took them into the forests and together they measured carbon stored in the soil. The ancient forests and rich soil layers were unforgettable, and the Guardians’ stories were inspiring.
The Nuxalk Nation has purchased 181 hectares (about half the size of Vancouver’s Stanley Park) of private land to prevent logging and development. This protects forests on the Central Coast of BC so they can keep pulling carbon from the air and storing it in trees and soil.
To measure this carbon storage, they dug soil pits across each property and collected samples from different soil layers. Lab analysis revealed the amount of carbon each sample contained, which they used to estimate the carbon storage across the entire 181-hectare project area.
The Nuxalk Nation’s land protection project shows how local stewardship builds long-term climate resilience for generations to come. Our Climate Resilience program works with rural, remote, and Indigenous communities who are leading natural climate solutions in their territories, creating benefits for climate and biodiversity.