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Renowned forest ecologist Andy MacKinnon (left) stands with members of the AFA after measuring Big Lonely Doug.

Big Lonely Doug Officially Measured and Confirmed as Canada’s 2nd Largest Douglas-fir Tree

Apr 24 2014/in Media Release

For Immediate Release

April 24, 2014

“Big Lonely Doug” Officially Measured and Confirmed as Canada’s 2nd Largest Douglas-fir Tree

Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island – “Big Lonely Doug”, a recently found old-growth Douglas-fir tree standing alone in a clearcut on southern Vancouver Island, has been officially measured to be the second largest Douglas-fir tree in Canada. Last week, renowned forest ecologist Andy MacKinnon, who manages the BC Big Tree Registry (see: https://bigtrees.forestry.ubc.ca/) run by the University of British Columbia and is also the co-author of the best-selling “Plants of Coastal British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon”, measured the goliath tree. The results are as follows:

Big Lonely Doug dimensions:

Height: 66 meters or 216 feet
Circumference: 11.91 meters or 39 feet
Diameter: 3.91 meters or 12.4 feet
Canopy Spread: 18.33 meters or 60.1 feet
Total Points (“AFA Points” – American Forestry Association, NOT Ancient Forest Alliance!): 701 AFA points.

This makes Big Lonely Doug the second largest Douglas-fir tree in British Columbia and Canada in terms of total size, based on its “points” (ie. a combination of circumference, height, and crown spread) and the second largest in circumference. Big Lonely Doug was first noticed by Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner TJ Watt several months ago as being an unusually large tree, and the organization returned several weeks ago to take preliminary measurements. Official measurements were taken last Friday.

The world’s largest Douglas-fir tree is the Red Creek Fir, located just 20 kilometers to the east of Big Lonely Doug in the San Juan River Valley, and is 13.28 meters (44 feet) in circumference, 4.3 meters (14 feet) in diameter, 73.8 meters (242 feet) tall, and has 784 AFA points.

Conservationists estimate that Big Lonely Doug may be 1000 years old, judging by nearby 2-meter-wide Douglas-fir stumps in the same clearcut with growth rings of 500 years. Big Lonely Doug grows in the Gordon River Valley near the coastal town of Port Renfrew on southern Vancouver Island, known as the “Tall Trees Capital” of Canada. It stands on Crown lands in Tree Farm Licence 46 in the traditional territory of the Pacheedaht First Nation band.

Conservationists are calling for provincial legislation to protect BC’s biggest trees, monumental groves, and endangered old-growth forests.

“We’re encouraging the province to keep moving forward with its promise to protect BC’s largest trees and monumental groves, and to also protect BC’s endangered old-growth ecosystems on a more comprehensive basis,” stated Ken Wu, AFA executive director. “The days of colossal trees like these are quickly coming to an end as the last unprotected lowland ancient forests in southern BC where giants like this grow are almost all gone.”

The BC Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations is currently working to follow up on a 2011 promise by then-Forest Minister Pat Bell to develop a new “legal tool” to protect the province’s biggest old-growth trees and grandest groves. Such a legal mechanism, if effective and if implemented to save not just individual trees but also the grandest groves, would be an important step forward in environmental protection and for enhancing the eco-tourism potential of the province. More comprehensive legislation would still be needed to protect the province’s old-growth ecosystems on a larger scale, to sustain biodiversity, clean water, and the climate, as the biggest trees and monumental groves are today a tiny fraction of the remaining old-growth forests which remain mainly on more marginal growing sites with smaller trees.

BC’s old-growth forests are important to sustain numerous species at risk that can’t live or flourish in second-growth stands; to mitigate climate change by storing over twice as much atmospheric carbon per hectare than the ensuing second-growth tree plantations that they are being replaced with; as fundamental pillars for BC’s multi-billion dollar tourism industry; to support clean water and wild salmon; and for many First Nations cultures who use ancient cedar trees for canoes, totems, long-houses, and numerous other items.

“The vast majority of BC’s remaining old-growth forests are at higher elevations, on rocky sites, and in bogs where the trees are much smaller and in many cases have low to no commercial value. It’s the productive valley-bottom stands where trees like the Big Lonely Doug grow that are incredibly scarce and are of the highest conservation priority right now,” stated TJ Watt.

See previous media coverage on Big Lonely Doug at:

• Global TV https://globalnews.ca/news/1235236/canadas-second-largest-douglas-fir-tree-may-have-been-found-near-port-renfrew
• Times Colonist https://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/vancouver-island-douglas-fir-may-be-canada-s-second-biggest-1.916676
• Vancouver Observer https://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/canadas-second-largest-douglas-fir-discovered
• CHEK TV https://www.cheknews.ca/?bckey=AQ~~,AAAA4mHNTzE~,ejlzBnGUUKY1gXVPwEwEepl35Y795rND&bclid=975107450001&bctid=3374339880001
• Huffington Post https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/03/26/big-lonely-doug-tree_n_5038519.html?1395881730
• MetroNews https://metronews.ca/news/victoria/981658/photos-giant-douglas-fir-tree-found-in-b-c-may-be-largest-in-world/

B.C.’s ‘Big Lonely Doug’ is the second-largest tree in Canada

Apr 24 2014/in News Coverage

PORT RENFREW — As trees go, it is one colossal conifer.

Tape measures confirm that a Douglas fir tree on Vancouver Island is officially the second-largest in Canada.

According to the B.C. Big Tree Registry run by the University of B.C., the tree — dubbed “Big Lonely Doug” by those who found it — stands 70.2 metres high, about as tall as an 18-storey building, and has a diameter almost that of a mid-sized car.

It takes 11.91 metres of tape to wrap round the base of the enormous evergreen and at the top, the tree’s canopy spreads across 18.33 metres.

Conservationists believe the tree near Port Renfrew, on southern Vancouver Island, could be as much as 1,000 years old.

The country’s largest Douglas fir, located in the San Juan River Valley 20 kilometres east of Big Lonely Doug, stands 73.8 metres tall and has a circumference of 13.28 metres.

Environmentalists opposed to clear-cut logging are calling on the government to stop logging in old-growth forests such as the ones where these towering trees are found.

First Tribal Park in BC/Indigenous Relations, Meares Island, Turns 30 Years Old and is Expanded

Apr 23 2014/in News Coverage

Vancouver Island, Canada

Yesterday, April 20th 2014, the 30 year anniversary of the Meares Island Tribal Park Declaration was celebrated by the Nuu-Chah-Nulth people of Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island along with their various friends and supporters, and a new Tribal Park declaration was made by Tla-o-qui-aht which effectively protects the rest of their territory including the resort municipality of Tofino.

The Meares Island Tribal Park was the first Tribal Park declared in British Columbia, and resulted in keeping the island’s majestic old-growth red-cedar forests still standing to this day. Since that time the Tribal Park model has not only been expanded by Tla-o-qui-aht in their own territory, but has also inspired First Nations’ protected areas across British Columbia and increasingly, around the world.

“The declaration of Meares Island as a Tribal Park 30 years ago set in motion an idea that has caught and spread throughout indigenous communities, that we can sustain our cultures by safeguarding the land and living things that provide for us,” stated Eli Enns, Tla-o-qui-aht co-founder of the Ha’uukmin (Kennedy Lake Watershed) Tribal Park in Clayoquot Sound. “We can assert our own management plans for our territories, as we have been doing for thousands of years, so that we can continue to live in harmony with the land that sustains us – and all of humanity.”

30 years ago, on April 21, 1984, the Tla-o-qui-aht and Ahousaht First Nations bands declared Meares Island as Canada’s first “Tribal Park” in a bid to stop logging plans of its old-growth forests. Protests were organized in Tofino, Victoria, and eventually on Meares Island in 1984, when the Tla-o-qui-aht and Ahousaht people were joined by non-First Nations allies at BC’s first logging blockade. The protests successfully fended off MacMillan Bloedel’s logging plans until March 27, 1985, when the BC Court of Appeal ruled that no logging could occur on Meares Island until aboriginal land claims had been settled in the region.
Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations

Recently, the declaration of the Tranquil Valley near Tofino as a Tribal Park has been making headlines in light of a proposed gold mine there, which the Tribal Park forbids. See: https://www.vancouversun.com/Vancouver+Island+First+Nation+declares+tribal+park+protect+land/9735029/story.html

“We have just finished a tribal park planning initiative that sustains jobs for 500 years, not just 10 years of jobs and 500 years of impact,” said Saya Masso, Tla-o-qui-aht band councillor and resource manager. “We are developing plans for our long-term future. We regard fish as a value, the serenity of our lands, and spiritual practices that we have to do there as all vital for our culture.”

Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks are also increasingly being recognized as a model in the global conservation arena through the Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCA) consortium (see:https://www.iccaconsortium.org/), an international organization promoting indigenous peoples’ conservation areas across the globe. The ICCA recently brought indigenous conservationists and allied non-profit organizations together in Tofino Territory in November 2013, to gain insight from the Tla-o-qui-aht model of Tribal Parks and to assist in building networks of indigenous conservationists around the world promoting similar initiatives in their own territories.

“You are welcome to come ashore and join us for a meal; but you have to leave your chainsaws in your boats. This is not a tree farm – this is Wah-nah-juss Hilth-hooiss, this is our Garden, this is a Tribal Park.” declared Moses Martin respectfully on the front lines of the blockades in 1984. Thirty years later, in his same respectful manor, Moses spoke of the critical need to continue to work together, First Nations and non-first nations alike, to ensure a healthy environment and sustainable economy for everyone.

For more information contact:
Terry Dorward
Tribal Parks Manager
1-250-725-3350