The Great Bear Rainforest is not an easy place to get to. It's a wilderness area the size of Switzerland, all but cut off from the rest of civilization. 
 
 Our ABC News team traveled by float plane. There are no roads here and no landing strips except for the flat stretches of water along the fjords. 
 
 What brought us to this remote corner of Canada is the spirit bear -- "Canada's panda" -- black bears with white fur because of a genetic variation. 
 
 With no more than 500 of them on Earth, spirit bears are more rare than pandas 
 
 Click here to see a slide show with photos of spirit bears. 
 
 The spirit bear is the marquee species for a region that's also crowded with whales, wolves and eagles. 
 
 "It's a magnificent bear," said Ian McAllister, director of the nonprofit conservation group Pacific Wild. 
 
 Today, the Great Bear Rainforest faces a threat -- a massive oil pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia, Canada. The plan would turn the spirit bear's home into a superhighway for supertankers. 
 
 "They want to bring Big Oil to this coast," McAllister said. "The only thing that's standing between that is really the spirit bear, the concerted efforts from conservationists and the First Nation [native] people." 
 
 Conservationists Call in the Cavalry 
 
 So the naturalists who long fought to protect the rain forest called in the photographic equivalent of the Green Berets -- the International League of Conservation Photographers. 
 
 "It is a SWAT team of photographers that are deployed to an area that needs immediate media attention," said the organization's president, Cristina Mittermeier. 
 
 "Some of them do large-format landscapes. Others are extraordinary wildlife photography shooters," she said. "We have an underwater photographer. The idea is to create a snapshot of this area." 
 
 Thomas Peschak, a photographer with Save Our Seas Foundation, spent most of his time in the frigid water eye-to-eye with the fish. 
 
 "There's large sea stars, colonies of Steller sea lions, humpback whales, orcas," Peschak said. "This place is just bursting at the seams with life. It's one of the richest systems on this planet." 
 
 Landscape photographer Jack Dykinga waited for hours for just the right light as aerial photographer Daniel Beltra worked from the open door of a helicopter. 
 
 Beltra spent the summer over the Gulf of Mexico, documenting the Deepwater Horizon spill in dazzling camera shots that make environmental disaster look like modern art. 
 
 National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen's assignment was to capture images of the spirit bear. 
 
 "You have to have patience and passion," he said, sitting quietly in the woods. "You have to have both of those. There are very few spirit bears, so if you want to see them you have to put in the 18-hour days for six days at a time just to see a glimpse of this white bear." 
 
 Marven Robinson, our guide, is a bear tracker for the Gitga'at Nation tribe, which is native to the region. The Gitga'at Nation consider the spirit bear sacred. 
 
 "We call it 'moskam al.' Moskam means white and al means bear," he said. 
 
 Robinson said that until recently, his tribe spoke about the bears only in whispers. 
 
 "We weren't even allowed to talk about it," he said. "If we were sitting at the dinner table, you know, and someone mentioned that they'd seen one. ... They'd tell you, 'Shh, keep it quiet.'" 
 
 Pipeline Through the Rain Forest 
 
 The residents of Hartley Bay, Robinson's hometown of 150, held a potluck dinner for the visiting photographers. Among the delicacies was fresh seal meat and smoked sea lion. 
 
 Helen Clifton, a tribal elder, said the elders strongly oppose the pipeline. 
 
 "We, the red race, were to be keepers of the land," she said. "We need all of you to help our spirit bear that we have out there." 
 
 But proponents of the pipeline say there's no cause for alarm, that the pipeline would skirt the Great Bear Rainforest. The oil would travel through the region only in modern, double-hulled tankers and guided by tugboats. They add that the pipeline would bring jobs to the region. 
 
 "We believe the potential for a spill is remote," said John Carruthers, president of the Northern Gateway pipeline project. "We'll also put in very thorough plans in the event of a spill, but the public needs to know we can respond very effectively if there is one." 
 
 The Enbridge oil company, unfortunately, has had some practice. An Enbridge pipeline in Michigan burst this summer, spilling 1 million barrels of oil into the Kalamazoo River, which flows into the Great Lakes. Last month, one of the company's pipelines in suburban Chicago started to leak. 
 
 It's little wonder that the fishermen are skeptical and worried that an oil spill could destroy their way of life. 
 
 "This is my bread and butter," one said. 
 
 The Search for the Spirit Bear Continues 
 
 The second day of our hunt for the Spirit bear involved a strenuous hike into an even more remote patch of woods. 
 
 Robinson, our bear tracker, said the area was off limits to everyone. Only he and his guides were allowed to enter. 
 
 The moss was so thick and soft, it could be used as a pillow. The place was so quiet that the only sound, besides the rapids, came from the salmon swimming upstream and the ravens flapping their wings overhead. 
 
 There was plenty of evidence that bears recently had been there -- fresh salmon killed on the rocks of the river and fresh bear droppings in the woods. 
 
 We hid quietly by the side of the river. 
 
 "This is where the bears are most likely coming to feed on salmon," Robinson said. "[With] the carcasses all over, you know, there's good signs." 
 
 The Search for the Spirit Bear Continues 
 
 Almost immediately, a white form emerged from the woods -- a lone wolf surprised to see humans. Black bears arrived. We waited and waited until the light faded. Disappointed, we trudged out of the woods. 
 
 On our last day of shooting, we set off early in hopes of better luck. And suddenly, there he was in an open field at the edge of the woods. 
 
 "It really feels like a ghost," said National Geographic photographer Nicklen. "You feel like you've seen a ghost -- the way they so seamlessly slip back into the forest and they're gone again. You have to look at your pictures to realize what you've just seen. It's just amazing." ||||| Experts warn there may be no unspoilt places left within a century as report shows an area twice the size of Alaska has been lost since 1993 
 
 Humans have destroyed a tenth of Earth’s remaining wilderness in the last 25 years and there may be none left within a century if trends continue, according to an authoritative new study. 
 
 
 
 Researchers found a vast area the size of two Alaskas – 3.3m square kilometres – had been tarnished by human activities between 1993 and today, which experts said was a “shockingly bad” and “profoundly large number”. 
 
 
 
 The Amazon accounted for nearly a third of the “catastrophic” loss, showing huge tracts of pristine rainforest are still being disrupted despite the Brazilian government slowing deforestation rates in recent years. A further 14% disappeared in central Africa, home to thousands of species including forest elephants and chimpanzees. 
 
 
 
 The loss of the world’s last untouched refuges would not just be disastrous for endangered species but for climate change efforts, the authors said, because some of the forests store enormous amounts of carbon. 
 
 
 
 “Without any policies to protect these areas, they are falling victim to widespread development. We probably have one to two decades to turn this around,” said lead author Dr James Watson, of the University of Queensland and Wildlife Conservation Society. 
 
 
 
 The analysis defined wilderness as places that are “ecologically largely intact” and “mostly free of human disturbance”, though some have indigenous people living within them. The team counted areas as no longer wilderness if they scored on eight measures of humanity’s footprint, including roads, lights at night and agriculture. 
 
 
 
 The largest chunk of wilderness in the Amazon basin shrank from 1.8m sq km to 1.3m sq km, while the Ucayali moist forests in the west of the Amazon, home to more than 600 bird species and primates including emperor tamarins, was badly affected. The trajectory of loss in the world’s biggest rainforest was “particularly concerning”, the authors warned, given it happened despite deforestation rates slowing. 
 
 In Africa, none of the lowland forest in the western Congo basin is now considered globally significant wilderness, the study found. WWF believes the area is possibly home to more gorillas and chimpanzees than other area in the world. 
 
 
 
 The study said that wilderness was being loss faster than pristine places were being designated as protected areas, at 3.3m sq km versus 2.5m sq km. 
 
 
 
 Professor William Laurance of James Cook University said: “Environmental policies are failing the world’s vanishing wildernesses. Despite being strongholds for imperilled biodiversity, regulating local climates, and sustaining many indigenous communities, wilderness areas are vanishing before our eye.” 
 
 
 
 The study said the reason was that such areas are “assumed to be relatively free from threatening processes and therefore are not a priority for conservation efforts”. 
 
 
 
 The ramifications of remaining wilderness being corrupted were wide-ranging and irreversible for both people and wildlife, Watson said. 
 
 
 
 “There are four reasons why we need to protect these places. One is biodiversity, the second is carbon, the third is the poorest of the poor are living in them, and the fourth is this is a reference point for nature, of pre-human environments,” he told the Guardian. 
 
 
 
 The Earth’s remaining wilderness areas are strongholds for many of the land-based mammals on the red list of endangered species, which was updated this week to reveal that four of the world’s six great apes are now critically endangered. 
 
 Losing forests in these areas could also affect leaders’ efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions to tackle climate change, the study said, because of the amount of carbon stored in trees and peat. 
 
 Rewilding plans by conservationists, similar to efforts to reintroduce wolves, lynx and other species to the UK, could also be harmed by the loss of wilderness, because the world risked losing a true picture of what certain ecosystems looked like. 
 
 
 
 “Without concerted preservation of existing wilderness areas, there will be a diminished capacity for large-scale ecological restoration,” the authors wrote. 
 
 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Burnt alpine vegetation at the Lake Mackenzie fire, Tasmania, January 2016. Photograph: Rob Blakers for the Guardian 
 
 Watson said unique ecosystems were being lost, and there was no turning back. “What is critical about this paper is when you erode these wildernesses, they don’t come back, you can’t restore them. They will come back as something else, but you can’t restore them,” he said. 
 
 
 
 The study, published in the journal Current Biology on Thursday, predicted that if current trends continue there could be no globally significantly wild areas left in “less than a century”. 
 
 
 
 However, the mapping exercise found that there is still 30m sq km of wilderness globally, 23% of the world’s land area. Strongholds include the boreal forests of northern Canada, Australia’s deserts and western woodlands, some lowland forests in Asia and parts of central Africa. 
 
 
 
 “They are the jewels in the crown. We have obligation to protect them in same way as we do species,” said Watson. 
 
 Stopping or slowing the loss of wilderness will require governments to put in place national strategies that recognise their value, the authors said. One Brazilian programme that supported the creation of protected areas to save carbon and help indigenous people was singled out as the type of project that could help address the decline. 
 
 But the authors admitted that: “[such] positive examples are too few, and we argue that immediate action to protect the world’s remaining wilderness areas on a large scale is now necessary, including in global policy platforms.” 
 
 Carlos Rittl, executive secretary of the Brazilian Climate Observatory, said: “This paper is a powerful reminder of the key role forests play on climate targets, and should be taken at heart by policymakers. Despite the recent drop in deforestation rates, Brazil is still the tropical country that most loses forests every year. 
 
 “Our Paris pledge on deforestation is shamefully weak - we are comformed with ending only illegal deforestation only by 2030 and only in Amazonia - and we don’t even have a plan for achieving that little. Brazil will ratify the Paris agreement next Monday. If the government is serious about meeting the deal’s long-term goal, it should be talking about zero deforestation.” 
 
 Mike Barrett, WWF-UK’s director of science and policy, said: “This vast scale of loss in global wilderness is having grave impacts. As we seemingly enter the Anthropocene era, this report further signifies humanity’s immense impact and the effects that is having for wildlife and people alike.” 
 
 He pointed to the recent red list update which showed the situation of giant pandas improving, but said: “While flagship species and habitats have an important role in tackling the biodiversity crisis, this alone won’t solve the problem. We need significant changes in how we value our planet as at present we’re taking relentlessly from our oceans, rivers, forests and wilderness.” 
 
 The study comes as the world’s top conservationists conclude their meeting in Hawaii this week on dozens of motions for protecting wildlife, including restrictions on the trade in the pangolin, the world’s most trafficked animal, and calls on governments to keep harmful activity such as oil drilling out of protected areas. 
 
 Later this month governments are due to attend a major meeting in Johannesburg to discuss the legal trade in endangered species, including the fate of the current international ban on the trade in ivory.
– Never heard of "Canada's panda?" Naturalists fighting to preserve the very rare bear's rainforest habitat in British Columbia want that to change. Only about 500 of the bears—a subspecies of black bear that has white fur—exist, and activists fear that a proposed pipeline through the Great Bear rainforest will spell doom for the animal that native peoples know as the "spirit bear," ABC reports. The pipeline project—designed to speed the passage of oil from tar sands in Alberta to China—will require the building of a terminal for supertankers in the rainforest, a largely untouched area of wilderness the size of Switzerland, and activist warn that a spill would devastate the area. So they've brought in the International League of Conservation Photographers, a sort of "SWAT team of photographers that are deployed to an area that needs immediate media attention," to photograph the wildlife there and bolster the case for preserving it. After much effort, they managed to capture images of several "spirit bears"—click here for a look.