A group of people came together in Clayoquot Sound last weekend to celebrate 25 years of conservation and community building. For decades, Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island was a region in conflict as hundreds of people stood on logging roads to save a temperate coastal rainforest from being clearcut. …Around the same time in the early ‘90s, a small but passionate group of individuals began considering the UNESCO Biosphere model as a way to bring the region together (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Clayoquot Sound, a region that includes the traditional territories of the Hesquiaht, Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations, was officially designated as the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Region in 2000. To mark this designation, in May 2000, the federal government entrusted a $12 million grant to Clayoquot Sound communities through the creation of the Canada Fund.