Help AFA raise $250,000 by December 31st – we’re over halfway there!
Support the protection of old-growth forests in BC through Indigenous-led conservation, science, and public action. Donate to help safeguard ancient forests.
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TJ Watt2025-12-15 15:20:282025-12-15 17:55:17Help AFA raise $250,000 by December 31st – we’re over halfway there!
Chek News: Document reveals approval to harvest remnant old-growth in B.C.’s northwest
BC Timber Sales has ended a policy protecting remnant old-growth in northwest B.C., citing First Nations’ positions, sparking concerns from ecologists and residents.
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TJ Watt2025-12-08 13:49:362025-12-08 13:49:36Chek News: Document reveals approval to harvest remnant old-growth in B.C.’s northwest
Thank You to Our Silent Auction business Donors!
Thank you to these local businesses for generously donating items and experiences to our first-ever online Silent Auction!
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TJ Watt2025-12-08 13:17:322025-12-08 13:50:51Thank You to Our Silent Auction business Donors!
Statement on the Provincial Forest Advisory Council’s Interim Report – AFA & EEA
The Provincial Forest Advisory Council’s (PFAC) interim report falls short of addressing the root causes of BC’s forestry crisis or outlining the bold, decisive actions needed to reverse it, warn the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) and Endangered Ecosystem Alliance (EEA).
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TJ Watt2025-11-21 10:13:452025-11-21 10:15:43Statement on the Provincial Forest Advisory Council’s Interim Report – AFA & EEA
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Eco-cyclists on cross-country trek
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Finding a cause you really believe in can be hard, but one Victoria native and one Aussie are making tough activist work look easy.
Jaime Hall and Nigel Jackett are so committed to supporting the Ancient Forest Alliance, they’ve dedicated six months of their lives and $10,000 of personal funds to cycle 7,500 kilometres across Canada to raise awareness for the AFA’s Vancouver Island cause. Last May, the two flew from their home in Australia to start the trip in St. John’s, N.L., and they’re set on raising $10,000 by the time they cycle into Victoria this fall.
Cycling across Canada “has been a dream of mine for a long time, but we just needed to find the right reason to do it,” says Hall, 25, a musician who grew up here. “There are so many issues out west that a lot of the country doesn’t know about, even though it affects us all. This has been a wonderful way to spread that knowledge.”
The two are linking their adventures with the audience through their blog, tilthelasttree.com, and have requested pledges every time they spot a new species of bird. When Monday first talked to the pair, they had spotted 168 species and had raised $1,300 — and they’d only reached New Brunswick. Now, they’ve counted 240 different birds, and have topped $2,140 in Ontario.
“Ken Wu and the Ancient Forest Alliance have put such a lot of work into this really great, passionate organization, and we thought that donating our cause to them was a perfect fit,” says Jackett, 27, a bird biologist from Australia who studied and surveyed for the B.C. government on Vancouver Island.
Ken Wu, founder of the AFA, says the organization is thrilled with the committed support, as well as the way Hall and Jackett are working to raise awareness to issues that can be hidden from the rest of the country. Hall met Wu about five years ago, and the two have conversed on wilderness and eco-awareness matters ever since.
“Their goal is to raise $10,000 for us, which would be huge, as in 2010 we ran the whole organization on just over $50,000,” says Wu. “We’re totally grateful to have as informed and dedicated supporters as Jaime and Nigel helping to raise funds and awareness for our campaign.”
This year, the AFA has been focused on working with the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group, a First Nations band between Shawnigan Lake and Nanaimo, in their bid to stop large-scale clearcutting of the former TimberWest lands — lands which were sold to two public sector pension funds without consultation of local First Nations. The AFA has also kept up awareness hikes for Avatar Grove, the Port Renfrew forest that largely put the group in public radar, and has been planning a major rally for September.
To make a donation or download Hall’s by-donation songs, visit tilthelasttree.com.
Link to original article: https://www.mondaymag.com/articles/entry/eco-cyclists-on-cross-country-trek/news/
Saanich company launches online game that aids ancient forests
/in News CoverageA Saanich-based company has set out to revolutionize non-profit fundraising, and they’ve turned to Facebook to do it.
On Sept. 8, Donate2Play Media launched its first social media game, a collaboration with local protectors of old growth forests, the Ancient Forest Alliance. The anagram game for Facebook, Wordraiser, combines images, facts and a petition related to the organization’s work, while prompting players for small donations to continue playing.
“Over beers we stumbled upon a concept where we use online gaming to generate funds,” said Adrian Pereira, one third of the team behind Donate2Play, along with his wife Kelly Pereira and friend Tomas Ernst. “It hadn’t actually been done before where we take a charity’s brand and make a game around the brand, integrating donating into the actual game.”
Donate2Play intends to continue covering the initial start up costs of developing games as they did for the Ancient Forest Alliance, while splitting revenue with non-profits in what Pereira describes as a no-risk business model.
“Essentially, Donate2Play is about trying to free (Ancient Forest Alliance) up from the headaches of traditional fundraising, so they can go out and do the work that they do really well, which is discovering new old growth forests,” Ernst said.
While the concept was in development, Ernst went on a nature walk with Ken Wu and TJ Watt, founders of the Ancient Forest Alliance.
“This is an non-profit that’s already thinking outside the box,” Ernst said. “They’re already forming alliances with typically untraditional partners for a non-profit.”
While players unscramble words in Wordfinder, they’ll be shown images of some of B.C.’s biggest trees, but if they lose, they’ll be subject to viewing images of some of B.C.’s biggest stumps, photographed by Watt for the tricky and challenging anagrams, he said.
“People have been quite generous so far, but it’s nice any time you can create a new and innovative avenue to bring in funds, especially if it involves entertainment,” Watt added.
Donate2Play hopes to tailor games to organizations globally across the non-profit sector. The company can be found at www.donate2play.com. Visit www.ancientforestalliance.org for more information on the Ancient Forest Alliance.
Link to original article: https://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_south/saanichnews/news/129632158.html
Victoria firm taps into social gaming for fundraising
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Determined to remove or at least reduce the cap-in-hand approach to fundraising used by charities and notfor-profit organizations, a new Victoria company is taking the fundraising campaign to social games on Facebook.
Donate2Play Media, founded by Tomas Ernst, Adrian Pereira and Kelly Pereira, has launched a program to help not-for-profit organizations raise money by tapping into the massive online social-gaming scene.
The company launched the first of those games Thursday – Wordraiser on Facebook – customized for the Victoria-based Ancient Forest Alliance.
According to Ernst, Donate2Play is about “empowering organizations like the AFA to spend less time chasing money and more time doing what they do best.”
“It’s a new channel to raise funds. Online social games are a billion-dollar industry,” he said, noting they hope to funnel a small fraction of that to organizations like the AFA. “Our goal is to create fresh, online social games that are fun and exciting to help them grow their revenue stream and activate their membership base.”
The Wordraiser game challenges players to create words from a jumble of letters. Players graduate through levels by finding a word that uses all of the letters provided. The game also offers facts and images to raise awareness of the province’s old-growth forests.
The money is raised when players are prompted to donate at certain levels.
The donations start at $1 and can go up to $20. The money donated is split 50-50 between the organization – in the case of Wordraiser that’s the Ancient Forest Alliance – and Donate2Play.
“We don’t want to cannibalize their other donation avenues, this is about augmenting the traditional fundraising channels,” said Ernst who suggested this kind of donating is a lot like dropping spare change into a box at any retail outlet. “We want to tap into the high volume of online users and tap into micropayments, as not everyone has $1,000 to give.”
“This is a great way to reach a new demographic of people, especially ones who may not be aware of the threat to our old growth,” said TJ Watt, one of the co-founders of the AFA, which works to protect old growth forest in the province. “And there’s a powerful ability to share the game with Facebook friends.”
Neither the AFA nor Donate2Play could estimate what kind of money they expect to raise through the game.
“We hope to scale to multiple charities across many causes, we expect big things out of it,” said Adrian Pereira, who noted it’s not all about money. “This is also about building awareness and increasing the support base for the charity.”
Ken Wu, co-founder of the AFA, said the organization is acting like a bit of a guinea pig.
“We don’t know what this will mean for us, but the beauty of it is we don’t have to pay anything, they put in all the risk,” he said, adding the AFA raised about $60,000 last year through traditional channels and expects to raise as much as $90,000 this year. “And hopefully this helps with that, this is a new revenue stream.”
Donate2Play would not divulge what it paid to create the game, other than saying it was costly.
In a 2009 article, Gamepro.com estimated the cost of developing a Facebook game at anywhere between $30,000 and $300,000 over a six-month cycle.
“But we think it’s worth it when you look at the explosive growth online, when you look at games right now,” said Ernst
Link to Times Colonist article not available anymore.