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Simon Jackson
Director of the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition

Simon has always loved bears and the wilderness, and has always wanted to help ensure all bears have wild spaces to live. He chose the spirit, or Kermode, bear as an animal that is unique to his home province of British Columbia and whose habitat is threatened, especially from logging. At 13, he created the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition to help educate the public about the spirit bear, its unique habitat, and the effects of logging on the bears and their main food source, salmon. Today, the coalition has involved over 5 million youth in 50 countries around the world, and Simon has been a huge force in lobbying the government to create habitat reserves for the spirit bears.

Simon is vice president of Hé ladé Productions, the creators of computer animated movie The Spirit Bear (coming in 2006!). He was featured in Time Magazine in 2000 as one of the 60 Heroes of the Planet, and that turned into TV, radio and print features that reached over 65 million people! For more about the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition, go to www.spiritbearyouthcoalition.org.

To check out the The Spirit Bear go to www.spiritbearmovie.com.