Local communities held a party following the announcement to celebrate the declaration, the culmination of their decades of work towards protection of their forests. (news.mongabay.com)
According to The Globe and Mail article Scientists plead for protection of forests by Bill Curry: (slaw.ca)
At his direction, funds from the Michael J. Connell Memorial Fund are to be used by the Bren School «as it may determine, with some preference to be given to utilizing such distributions in the area of watershed protection and productivity and protection of forest lands as being critical to our water supply.» (bren.ucsb.edu)