Two big tree hunters from Vancouver have just identified the fourth-widest known tree in Canada: an ancient western redcedar tentatively measured at over 5.8 metres (19.1 feet) in diameter and well over a thousand years old.
Nicknamed “The North Shore Giant”, this ancient colossus was found by Colin Spratt, a Vancouver big-tree hunter, and Ian Thomas of the Ancient Forest Alliance, on an expedition deep into the remote reaches of Vancouver’s Lynn Headwaters Regional Park in the territory of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Lynn Valley has long been renowned for its giant trees. In fact, the tallest trees on Earth might once have grown there, but aggressive logging in the 19th and early 20th centuries eliminated most of those superlative forests. Throughout much of Lynn Valley, gargantuan, castle-like stumps are all that remain of the ancient trees that once dominated the region.
However, in the depths of the watershed, far from the established trails, are remnants of that original old-growth forest – enormous trees many centuries old, still surviving a stone’s throw from the thriving metropolis of Vancouver.
“Finding this colossal ancient tree just demonstrates the sublime grandeur of these old-growth temperate rainforests,” stated Ancient Forest Alliance researcher Ian Thomas. “Luckily this incredible being and the impressive grove in which it stands is safe in a park. Most of our richest ancient forests are still unprotected and in danger of being logged. Even now in Canada, in the year 2022, trees as old as this giant, and entire groves like this one, are still being cut down on an industrial scale.”
The terrain is extremely rugged, with sheer cliffs, treacherous boulder fields, steep ravines, and dense underbrush, which has allowed these monumental trees to remain hidden for so long. The North Shore Giant grows on the slopes west of Lynn Creek on a boulder field among other magnificent ancient redcedars. Further groves of giant trees are found nearby, including one containing Canada’s fifth widest known western hemlock, identified mere hours before the North Shore Giant. The area represents one of the most magnificent tracts of productive ancient forest left in BC.
Colin Spratt and Ian Thomas set out to fully document and explore this incredible ancient forest. On their second expedition and after bushwacking for 10 hours, they finally arrived at the North Shore Giant and realized that this could be the widest tree that has been found in Canada in over 34 years. The current diameter measurement is a preliminary one, following the methodology of the American Forest Association’s Champion Trees Program, which has been the standard used by BC’s own official big-tree registry. Soon, members of the British Columbia Big Tree Committee will visit the tree to confirm the diameter and take official height and crown measurements for entry into BC’s Big Tree Registry.
“When I first saw the tree, I froze in my tracks and the blood drained from my face. I started getting dizzy as I realized it was one of the largest cedars ever found, and one of the most amazing life forms left on earth. Finding this tree is an incredible reminder of what is still out there in the less explored old-growth forests. It’s sobering to realize that in so many areas of BC, unprotected trees and groves just as rare and precious are still being cut down,” said big-tree hunter Colin Spratt.
“This is one of the most remarkable big-tree finds of this century and it just shows how special the old-growth forests in BC are. Unfortunately, unless the BC government hurries up and provides the critical funding – several hundred million dollars more, which is peanuts if you look at their other massive spending projects – they will ensure that the status quo of industrial clearcutting of the last unprotected old-growth stands occurs. In particular, support for Indigenous old-growth protection initiatives and the associated sustainable economic development in the communities is needed, along with a major, dedicated land acquisition fund to purchase and protect old-growth forests on private lands. They can fix all of this if they wanted to in their upcoming budget,” said TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and photographer.
https://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Photo-3-1-scaled.jpg19162560TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2022-06-27 10:22:072022-10-04 15:03:35Giant tree found in North Vancouver could be Canada’s fourth widest
Read the CBC News article highlighting our report card with Sierra Club BC and Wilderness Committee that evaluates the BC government’s progress on promised implementation of the Old Growth Strategic Review panel’s recommendations.
We note significant improvements in funding and transparency but emphasize that the provincial government is still moving far too slowly. Essential funding for old-growth conservation still falls short of the estimated $300 million needed from the province to support First Nations communities alone.
Of special note, the province has now stated they are in talks with the federal government to partner on the expansion of protected areas in BC, and will soon have an update on the status of old-growth deferrals.
These encouraging statements will need to be backed by concrete actions in order for the province to score better on its next report card in September.
18-month report card on the government’s progress implementing the Old-Growth Strategic Review panel’s 14 recommendations.
AFA’s TJ Watt recently sat down for a chat with Creative Director Heidi Volpe at A Photo Editor.
Read on to find out about how he got into conservation photography, the founding of AFA, the affection he has for Big Lonely Doug, and the impact his photos have on shaping the way people view forests and logging in British Columbia.
https://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/3-Eden-Grove-Port-Renfrew-TJ-Watt-1.jpg16672500TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2022-03-08 17:04:222023-04-06 19:05:30TJ Watt featured in A Photo Editor
We’re excited to share that AFA photographer TJ Watt was featured in CBC’s podcast, The Doc Project: Big Tree Hunt, which highlights his efforts to explore, document, and protect ancient forests in B.C.
Tune in to hear more about TJ’s photography and conservation work and join a remote bushwhacking mission to Vernon Bay in Barkley Sound in the territory of the Uchucklesaht and Tseshaht First Nations, where they explore the area’s incredible-yet-unprotected ancient forests and find monumental redcedar trees up to 12 feet in diameter at risk of being logged.
Photographer of giant old-growth trees has ‘best and worst job in the world’
CBC Radio
November 26, 2021
TJ Watt’s before-and-after shots in clearcut forests part of renewed movement to protect B.C.’s oldest trees.
On an overcast day last August, TJ Watt made his way around the trunk of a giant western red cedar. In one hand, he clutched a yellow measuring tape. With his other, he pushed away a thick undergrowth of salal and ferns.
“It’s a small hike just to get around this thing,” Watt called out. A moment later, he read the measurement of the tree’s girth: a whopping 11.6 metres.
It was the biggest tree that Watt had found all day. To get here, he had hiked several hours off-trail, bushwhacking through dense, moss-laden rainforest, near Barkley Sound on Vancouver Island’s rugged west coast.
An aerial view of unprotected old-growth forests along the coastline of Barkley Sound in the territory of the Uchucklesaht and Tseshaht First Nations. (TJ Watt)
The Victoria-based photographer and activist has spent much of the past 15 years searching for and photographing some of Canada’s biggest, oldest trees. The trees he finds are often upwards of a thousand years old and wide enough to drive a car through.
His backcountry quests are more than just adventures though. Most of the trees that Watt finds are slated to be cut down. Watt’s photographs, which he posts on social media, have become a powerful tool for ramping up public support to protect B.C.’s old-growth forests.
“It can be hard to capture the complexity and the whole essence of this issue,” says Watt, who co-founded the non-profit advocacy group Ancient Forest Alliance 10 years ago. “You have to somehow find a single image that encapsulates all of that, and the feelings that go with it.”
Old-growth logging has long been contentious in B.C. The debate first made headlines in the early 1990s, when hundreds of protesters gathered near Clayoquot Sound for the so-called “war in the woods.”
The protests garnered international media attention and shone a spotlight on logging practices in the province. Clayoquot Sound was ultimately protected and local First Nations have stewarded the area’s forests ever since. But elsewhere in B.C., old-growth logging continued.
In the last fiscal year, the province said $1.3 billion in revenue and more than 50,000 jobs were linked to the forestry sector. Logging is particularly important for some smaller, more remote communities, says Jim Girvan, a forestry economist and former director of the Truck Loggers Association. “If the forest industry wasn’t there operating, those small towns would eventually become ghost towns,” Girvan said.
An old-growth tree is defined in B.C. as one that is older than 250 years in coastal forests, or 140 years in interior forests. According to provincial data, roughly 50,000 hectares of old-growth forest are cut annually. The older, bigger trees tend to have the highest value, says Girvan, which is important for an industry that’s been struggling to keep afloat. “Old-growth logs, for example, are very good for making guitars, and that’s one of the products that a lot of people come to British Columbia for,” he explained.
For his part, Watt says he’s not opposed to logging but argues that it needs to be done differently — for example, in second-growth tree plantations, which replace old-growth forests lost to fire and logging, with trees re-logged every 50-60 years. Watt also feels “there should be a more value-added side to the industry.” Rather than exporting raw logs to other countries, Watt says, those logs should be processed in B.C. to make higher-end products.
Watt’s photographs have also led to a different economic opportunity: tourism. A stand of thousand-year old conifers near Port Renfrew, known as Avatar Grove, was protected after Watt’s photos caught the attention of hikers, ecologists and activists 10 years ago. Today, the area is a protected park and draws thousands of tourists every summer seeking big trees.
Still, many of the trees that Watt has photographed have been cut down. Last year, he hiked into the Caycuse Valley, a few hours north of Victoria, just as logging was set to begin. He decided to try something different: photographing the forest before—and after—it was cleared. “I remember thinking that by tomorrow morning [these trees] won’t be here,” he said. “It’s a very odd experience to feel that you’re essentially taking a portrait of something in its final days.”
Watt returned after logging was complete and took photos from the same vantage points. Then he posted the before-and-after series on social media. The response was almost immediate, he says. “When you refresh the page just a few minutes later and it’s already got a hundred comments and a thousand shares, you can tell that it’s going to blow up in a big way.”
The photos generated some two million views on social media, along with international media coverage, and sparked public outcry. Since then, tensions over old-growth logging have reached a boiling point with more than 900 protesters arrested at anti-logging blockades in the Fairy Creek watershed—not far from the Caycuse Valley where Watt took the before-and-after photos.
In early November—facing increasing public pressure—the B.C. government announced, in principle, a temporary halt to logging in 2.6 million hectares of old-growth forests. The province stated its “intention to work in partnership with First Nations” to develop forest sustainability plans while logging of certain rare old-growth trees is deferred. If the deferrals become permanent, the province estimates that up to 4,500 jobs could be lost. Industry officials have suggested that number could be four times higher.
The announcement came a year and a half after the provincially commissioned old-growth strategy review panel released its recommendations, calling for a “paradigm shift” in logging practices. The panel called for a more ecological approach to managing B.C.’s forests, and a stronger oversight role for First Nations.
“The small communities and logging contractors we spoke with were just as concerned about not losing biological diversity, not damaging our environment, as the people who are protesting out the windows,” said Al Gorley, co-chair of the old-growth review panel.
The provincial announcement came as welcome news for Watt. The giant western red cedar that he’d photographed near Barkley Sound this summer is located in one of the logging deferral areas, meaning it won’t be cut down any time soon.
After more than a decade of documenting trees before they’re cut down, Watt sounded cautiously optimistic. “At the end of the day, I need to know that I did everything I could to make a difference,” he said. “Hopefully our efforts pay off.”
“I think for someone who loves trees,” he added, “I have the best job and the worst job in the world.”
https://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/927094194_TJinCaycusebeforeandafter.7.sized_.thumb_.jpg.afc0d79a6cfb1e332ae1422fc69c8c7e.jpg7391000TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2021-11-30 17:25:322023-04-06 19:05:44TJ Watt Featured in CBC’s Podcast, The Doc Project: Big Tree Hunt
Watt’s dramatic images of coastal forests—before and after logging—have helped everyone better understand what’s being lost.
THERE WERE A FEW TIMES, as TJ Watt slogged through a sea of stumps and barren clearcuts, that he questioned whether anyone cared that trees, which had grown for centuries and supported intricate networks of species, had been destroyed forever.
“You sometimes wonder ‘why am I even doing this? Is it really making a difference,’” said Watt, a photographer and campaigner for the Ancient Forest Alliance whose dramatic before-and-after pictures of old-growth logging in BC recently went viral.
International shockwaves from his photographs of giant western red cedars in the Caycuse River watershed on southern Vancouver Island, strategically placed with after-logging images of massive stumps, helped focus attention on BC’s already controversial old-growth logging policies.
All photos above were taken in the Caycuse area of Vancouver Island by TJ Watt.
The reaction proved that, indeed, people do care.
“It says we are on the right track,” Watt said.
The images appeared in several major magazines and were recognized in three international photo competitions. Then, in October, Watt was named as a National Geographic Explorer and Royal Canadian Geographical Society Explorer.
Watt will also receive a Trebek Initiative grant, which will help fund more expeditions into remote areas where, out of sight of the general public, old-growth is being logged.
He hopes the recognition will allow him to reach a wider audience. “I think it just goes to show that this is truly a globally significant issue. These are some of the Earth’s largest and oldest trees and, here we are in a first-world country, and it is still legal to cut them down,” said Watt.
TJ Watt
The Trebek Initiative is named after Alex Trebek, the Canadian host of the popular television show Jeopardy, who died earlier this year. Trebek was an honorary president of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and the grants, awarded for the first time this year, support explorers, scientists, photographers, geographers and educators who use storytelling to ignite “a passion to preserve.”
The recognition comes shortly after Watt’s latest release of photographs that are breath-taking for all the wrong reasons.
The pictures of scalped hillsides along the upper Mahatta River on northwestern Vancouver Island immediately drew horrified condemnation of BC’s old-growth forestry policies.
Scalped hillsides along the upper Mahatta River on northwestern Vancouver Island (photo by TJ Watt)The destruction on the ground at Mahatta River (photo by TJ Watt)
About 50 hectares around the Mahatta River, within the territory of Quatsino First Nation, was auctioned off by BC Timber Sales, and the photos show the raw reality of clearcutting, with slopes and the valley bottom denuded of old-growth trees, leaving only giant cedar stumps.
“[The photos] really struck a nerve with people. A lot of people see those images and think ‘didn’t we stop clearcutting like that back in the 1990s?’” Watt said.
The trees were cut last year and this year—after the Province received the Old Growth Strategic Review which called for a paradigm shift in the way BC manages ancient forests.
“This is one of the most atrocious examples of logging that I’ve seen in more than a decade,” said Watt, 37, who has worked on photography projects for the Ancient Forest Alliance since 2010.
The Province has committed to implementing the panel’s 14 recommendations, but, in the meantime, old-growth logging has accelerated and Forests Minister Katrine Conroy confirmed last month that, out of a total annual cut of about 200,000 hectares, 55,000 hectares are old growth.
Historically, before commercial logging, there were about 25-million hectares of old growth and government figures now put BC’s total forest at 56.2 million hectares of which 11.1 million hectares is old growth (not the 13.7-million hectares that government previously estimated).
The definition of coastal old growth is a forest with trees that are at least 250 years old and, in the Interior, trees that are at least 140 years old.
It’s too late for the Mahatta River forest, but Watt is holding out hope that people will no longer put up with such destruction elsewhere.
“The world is watching right now,” he said
“I’m hoping that the pressure of these images and the rest of the photographs we have been sharing are enough to push the government in the direction of doing the right thing.”
Recent BCTS logging at Mahatta River (photo by TJ Watt)
From skate-boarding hippie to making a difference with pictures
Watt’s interest in photography, which morphed into his crusade for old growth, started when he was a skate-boarding teenager, sporting dreadlocks and living in Metchosin.
“Like every young photographer, I figured I wanted to travel the world and shoot photos of far-flung places, but after a few months doing that and then coming home I realized the landscape in the forests right in my own back yard on Vancouver Island, are second to none and I decided to really focus my efforts here,” he said.
That commitment was cemented by a stint at the now-defunct Western Academy of Photography.
“It gave me a year to focus specifically on photography instead of doing all the construction and landscaping jobs I was doing. I knew I wanted to do photography related to nature and photography with a real purpose,” he said.
It was a decision that worried his family, Watt admits.
“If you tell your parents that you’re going to be an artist that saves trees and that’s how you’re going to make a living, they definitely roll their eyes at you and look concerned and worried,” he said.
“But, I can say, more than a decade later, they’re some of the proudest people around. You sometimes really do have to follow your gut, follow your dreams and believe it’s all going to work out.”
Andrea Kucherawy was program manager at the Western Academy of Photogaphy when Watt arrived as a student and she watched his potential develop.
“He definitely stood out for me,” said Kucherawy who has avidly followed his career.
Watt’s interest in environmental photography paralleled his interest in sports such as skateboarding, said Kucherawy, who is pleased he took the environmental route.
“I honestly don’t think we would be where we are now without the work he has done,” she said.
“People need a visual, a comparison and his before-and-after work often includes a human element to give a sense of scale and I think that’s what’s really empowering for the cause,” she said.
Ken Wu, who co-founded the Ancient Forest Alliance and is now executive director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance, first met Watt when he (Wu) was executive director of the Victoria chapter of the Wilderness Committee.
“He was this skateboarding hippie who always had a camera with him and he liked to take pictures of all the protests we were organizing,” Wu said.
“Then I sent him into the woods to take pictures of the old-growth forests and to build trails and it turned out that he had a great aptitude for trail building and outdoor activities in rugged landscapes,” he said.
When Wu split from the Wilderness Committee, one of his first moves was to hire TJ as the Ancient Forest Alliance’s first staff member.
One of the most celebrated early campaigns was sparked by the duo’s discovery of Avatar Grove, near Port Renfrew. TJ’s photos of the huge, gnarly trees and untouched forest, which was slated to be felled, sparked massive public interest.
Avatar Grove (photo by TJ Watt)Avatar Grove (photo by TJ Watt)
Avatar Grove has now become a tourist attraction and was pivotal in the transformation of Port Renfrew from a logging town to a destination for people who want to see big trees.
It was the right time in history, noted Wu: the movie Avatar—which has a story line about saving a forest on another planet—was taking the world by storm; and TJ’s growing camera skills, combined with the rise of Facebook, allowed his photos of the discovery of a spectacular grove of trees in an accessible area to be shared around the world.
“I recognized that TJ’s photos could be news media in and of themselves because they could be shared on that new platform,” Wu said.
“They really hit home. It’s a visual shock. It’s like harpooned whales or rhinos with their horns cut off, you get it a lot more quickly than all of my emails about productivity distinctions and tenure regulations,” he said.
Edward Burtynsky, one of Canada’s best-known photographers, who focuses on global industrial landscapes, came across TJ when he was looking at photographing big trees and BC’s northern rainforest.
All his research led to TJ and a loose collaboration started, said Burtynsky, who was impressed with the power of the photographs and the direction of the Ancient Forest Alliance campaigns.
“When you name an area and name a tree it’s a really powerful way to save them,” he said.
Now, in the age of iPhones, images have become one of the most powerful and fluid forms of communication, putting eyes on parts of the world that most people cannot witness first-hand, Burtynsky said.
“Those before-and-after images I believe really drive the point home. You look at a tree that is 500, 700 or even 1,000 years old that sprouted before the medieval age and is now going to be sent somewhere else—not even here—to be cut into boards for decking. There’s something terribly wrong with that image,” he said.
“I can’t see a more compelling way to tell that story than letting people look at that majestic tree and then [look at it again] after the loggers have been in.”
Before and after images of logging of old-growth forest on Vancouver Island (photos by TJ Watt)
Sonia Furstenau, leader of the BC Green Party, said Watt’s photographs illustrate the gap between logging practices on the ground and the story that government tries to tell.
“Thirty years ago, the world was paying attention because we were clearcutting old-growth forests. Well, nothing has changed,” she said.
“We have accepted this approach to forestry that puts mechanization and efficiency above, not only ecosystem protection, but also above jobs,” said Furstenau, pointing out that increasing volumes of timber are being cut with fewer and fewer people working in the industry.
“When you see these images that TJ has so beautifully captured of before and after, what he shows is the real devastation of these logging practices,” Furstenau said.
A huge emotional toll in witnessing the destruction
The accolades for Watt come at a pivotal point as the provincial government announced in early November that logging will be deferred on 2.6 million hectares of old growth for two years while it consults with the province’s 204 First Nations.
The deferrals are based on new mapping, identifying areas of old growth where there is imminent risk of biodiversity loss. BC Timber Sales, the government agency that hands out logging contracts for 20 percent of the province’s annual allowable cut—and which has been heavily criticized for auctioning off some of the most controversial areas of old growth—will immediately stop advertising and selling parcels in the deferral areas.
It is positive that government is now using independent mapping, based on science, to identify old-growth forests at risk and that mapping confirms that many of BC’s forests are at risk of irreversible biodiversity loss, Watt said.
However, details and provincial funding are missing although the federal government has committed $50-million to help protect BC’s ancient forests, noted Watt.
“Without a matching provincial commitment of several hundred million dollars in conservation funding, with a primary focus on First Nations economic relief linked to deferrals, the full scale of the deferrals and eventual permanent protection will be impossible to achieve,” he said.
“We have the road map in hand, but we’re missing the gas in the tank,” he said.
That means the clock is ticking as the ever-shrinking remains of BC’s old-growth forests are continuing to fall and Watt suspects it will be impossible to avoid more before-and-after pictures—and they are never easy.
The chance to inform the public about forestry practices in the hidden corners of the province is a privilege, but it leaves scars, Watt admits.
“There’s a huge emotional toll and compounding ecological grief to witnessing the disappearance and destruction of these truly irreplaceable forests,” he said.
“It even causes a lot of anger, because I know that every day there’s a delay in ensuring these forests are protected, some of them are gone forever. Trees may come back, but never the ancient forests that are so humbling and awe-inspiring.”
As an example, he described how retracing his steps through the Caycuse after the machines had done their worst, was like looking at the death of old friends.
The idea of irretrievable loss when old-growth forests are cut was echoed by Gary Merkel, one of the authors of the Old Growth Strategic Review and a member of the technical advisory panel on the recent deferrals.
Speaking at the news conference Merkel emphasized the importance of the underlying ecosystems in old-growth forests: “Some of our ecosystems in British Columbia remain relatively undisturbed since the last ice-age, more than 10,000 years,” he said.
“We can grow new trees, they are renewable. These ecosystems, in most cases, are not renewable. They will never come back in a lifetime and possibly ever because of climate change,” he said.
Watt’s photographs have helped make British Columbians aware of what was happening in the remote reaches of Vancouver Island. Despite the toll, Watt is committed to continuing his work on behalf of the forest: “Unless we go on these trips to try to expose them, the forests would disappear without anybody knowing about it.”
https://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/1341657734_TJinCaycusebeforeandafter.7.sized_.jpg.d55481bd88c3e32e46f48e9de21af6ef.jpg11081500TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2021-11-16 12:35:072023-04-06 19:05:45Photographer TJ Watt wins accolades for showing the world the destruction of old-growth forests in BC
Victoria photographer TJ Watt, whose photos documenting the loss of old-growth trees have been seen around the world, has won a grant named for former Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek.
Times Colonist November 12, 2021
“I would consider myself successful if I put myself out of a job,” says TJ Watt, a photographer and co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, who has received one of the first Trebek Initiative grants to support his work documenting the loss of old-growth trees on Vancouver Island. The grant is named for former Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek, who had a passion for geography. SUBMITTED BY TJ WATT
Victoria photographer TJ Watt, whose photos documenting the loss of old-growth trees have been seen around the world, has won a grant named for former Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek.
The Trebek Initiative grant will support the continuation of Watt’s “before” and “after” series, which depicts 800-to-1,000-year-old red cedars in the Caycuse Valley of southern Vancouver Island next to images of the stumps left behind after the trees are cut.
Watt, always in the same red jacket, stands next to the trees and their stumps, providing scale for the enormous trees.
Watt said he is humbled and grateful to have received one of the initial grants from the Trebek Initiative, which was awarded for the first time this year following Trebek’s death last November. He is also named a National Geographic Explorer and a Royal Canadian Geographical Society Explorer.
Watt, 37, said he has dedicated the last 15 years to documenting B.C.’s ancient forests in an effort to save them from logging.
“A lot of that time is spent alone, either in really rainy, miserable, clearcuts or off in faraway forests. You can feel like you wonder if anyone’s paying attention or watching, but I think this grant award and those naming recognitions really show that the world is watching,” said Watt, a co-founder of the non-profit Ancient Forest Alliance, which works to protect B.C.’s old-growth forests from logging.
His series of before-and-after images, published while protests against old-growth logging on southern Vancouver Island grew into Canada’s largest act of civil disobedience, was seen by millions on social media and recognized by multiple international photography contests. About 1,100 arrests have been arrested in the Fairy Creek area near Port Renfrew since May for attempting to block logging crews from cutting down old-growth trees.
“When people saw those photos, it was just outrage. There’s no way to spin it in any positive way,” Watt said. “And I think it really held the government’s feet to the fire to actually move and take some real action to protect old-growth forests.”
Watt took his “before” photos in the spring of 2020, carefully recording the location of each tree and noting how his camera was set up so he could return and replicate the image when only stumps remained.
“I was literally standing on the edge of existence where you have massive stumps on one side and a 12-foot-wide tree on your other side with a chainsaw sitting beside it, knowing that the next day that tree is going to be cut down,” he said.
Watt has already taken his first “before” images of giant red cedars and Sitka spruce trees with support from the Trebek grant. The success of the series is bittersweet for Watt.
“I would consider myself successful if I put myself out of a job,” he said. “We just don’t have the time to do this forever. The old-growth forests are already in a crisis.”
The Trebek Initiative grant supports emerging Canadian explorers, scientists, photographers, geographers and educators to explore unique ecozones, conduct research on wildlife, wilderness or water and document Canadian geography.
Trebek, who had a passion for geography, served as honorary president of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society from 2016 until his death on Nov. 8, 2020.
https://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Times-Colonist-TJ-Watt.jpg1000668TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2021-11-16 11:54:512023-04-06 19:05:45Old-growth images net Victoria photographer grant named for Jeopardy! host
In British Columbia’s Nahmint Valley, an 11th-hour reprieve was issued this week for ancient forests that were slated for logging.
The valley, in central Vancouver Island, features massive old western redcedars and some of the province’s largest Douglas fir trees, and is home to Roosevelt elk, black-tailed deer, cougars, wolves, black bears and threatened species such as the marbled murrelet and northern goshawk. It has been at the centre of a long-running battle between environmental values and economic ones, as the provincial government’s own logging agency, BC Timber Sales (BCTS), oversees the falling of large chunks of the forest.
Across BC, a total of 2.6 million hectares of rare, old-growth forests may be spared further logging under the provincial government’s new approach to forestry, which recognizes that these ecosystems are irreplaceable. On Nov. 2, Forests Minister Katrine Conroy announced the province’s largest-ever commitment to preservation. The first step isto suspend logging in one-third of the rare, old-growth forests, which are considered at a very high risk of irreversible biodiversity loss. The measures are temporary, but intended to allow time for the government to fully develop its plan, which will make the health of British Columbia’s forests an overarching priority.
There is a catch: Most of the proposed logging moratoriums are subject to what may be lengthy consultations with Indigenous communities. But the province has immediately put the brakes on new logging through BCTS, which accounts for one-fifth of all of BC’s annual forestry harvest. For the bulk of the proposed deferrals, the province will make no changes until it conducts individual consultations with 204 First Nations, a process that, optimistically, the province hopes to complete in 30 days.
Meanwhile, BC will continue to harvest trees in old-growth forests, some essentially undisturbed since the last ice age, as part of an industry that still contributes mightily to the provincial coffers.
Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and photographer TJ Watt beside an old-growth Douglas-fir tree in a planned BC Timber Sales cutblock that is now deferred from logging in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni.
TJ Watt has spent years bushwhacking through the Nahmint Valley for the non-profit Ancient Forest Alliance, documenting both the old-growth giants and the logging that targets the biggest and most valuable stands of trees. Since the announcement on Tuesday, he has been studying the deferral maps to see what the changes mean.
“We’ve documented some of the earth’s largest trees being cut down there by BC Timber Sales, and we’ve continued to highlight the forest that remains at risk in that valley. And today, I’m excited to look at these maps and see that there is a real change coming,” he said.
The valley has been heavily logged, same as the surrounding region. The nearest town is Port Alberni, a forestry-dependent community where the first commercial sawmill opened in 1860.
The San Group opened a $70-million sawmill in Port Alberni in 2020, the first major investment in coastal sawmilling in 15 years. Kamal Sanghera, the chief executive officer, said his company’s five mills are already struggling to obtain raw materials to process, but if halting BCTS operations in places such as the Nahmint Valley leads to reforms of the system, he can support the changes.
“We need to cut less and create more value,” Mr. Sanghera said in an interview Friday. “The system now is wrong. We are shipping raw logs overseas, while guys like us can’t get supply.”
Conflict over old-growth forestry is a familiar story in BC, which was described internationally as the “Brazil of the North” 30 years ago. In 1992, the provincial government appointed an independent Commissioner of Resources and Environment in a bid to resolve these conflicts with a consensus-based land use strategy. Consensus remains elusive, and while the industry has changed, timber harvesting remains entrenched as a priority over values such as biodiversity.
One factor has changed significantly. In 1992, Indigenous communities struggled to influence land-use decisions in their traditional territories. Today, the BC government is bound by legislation to seek consent before making new decisions about resource development.
The First Nations Leadership Council, in a statement Thursday, welcomed the deferrals but criticized the delivery, noting that some old growth remains unprotected while the consultations are carried out. As well, the council is unhappy that the province has passed responsibility to First Nations without providing financial support to replace any revenues that might be lost if they choose to defer logging old growth in their territory.
Ms. Conroy would not say whether her government is ready to offer compensation to First Nations that wish to approve deferrals. “We will work with the communities,” she said in an interview.
The government is also under fire from the forest industry, which predicts devastating consequences for jobs and communities if the deferrals are approved.
Susan Yurkovich, president and chief executive officer of the Council of Forest Industries, is shocked by the scale of the deferrals. To freeze 2.6 million hectares of old-growth forests equals an annual loss of 10 million cubic metres of timber, she said. Based on the average requirement to feed a sawmill, that would shut down up to 20 mills, and cost 18,000 jobs, she added.
The provincial government insists that the toll will be smaller: If all of the proposed deferrals go ahead, 4,500 forestry workers would be out of a job. The transition that the BC government envisions would see the forest industry extract more product, more value and more jobs out of every tree cut. But that, Ms. Yurkovich said, would require significant investments.
“To retool a mill takes millions and millions of dollars,” she said, “What is going to get people to invest is predictable access to fibre at a reasonable cost. And this announcement has created significant additional uncertainty. It is going to have a chilling effect not only for industry, but for workers.”
The bulk of the trees that are cut in BC are on Crown land, meaning that forestry companies depend on the province for their fibre supply. That is the provincial government’s bargaining chip.
“This is a new vision for how we’re going to do forestry in this province. We have to look at the whole picture, the whole ecosystem. It’s not just about looking at that tree and saying, ‘Okay, how much do I get for that when we harvest it?’” Ms. Conroy said. “Some companies have adjusted and some haven’t. If you’re going to harvest our timber in BC and reap the benefits of that, then we hope you will invest in BC They are the peoples’ forests.”
Although many communities around the province still depend on forestry, the industry’s clout has waned. In 1992, the industry provided more than 90,000 jobs; today there are about 50,000. Mills have closed around the province even as the trees continue to fall. In the past year, BC has shipped $500 million worth of raw logs overseas to be processed in other countries. Nation-wide, only Alberta gets fewer jobs out of every tree cut.
As the most valuable, old-growth forests disappear, experts warn that job losses, with or without this action, are looming.
Ecologist Rachel Holt is one of the experts the province retained to produce its 2.6-million-hectare deferral plan. “We know that the old growth is running out. In some places, it’s already gone, like the dry coastal Douglas fir forests on the east side of Vancouver Island. We couldn’t set deferrals, because there is no old growth left. And what has industry done to prepare for this? Where was the forward planning to make sure there wasn’t community disaster?”
Environmentalists have accused the BC NDP government of dragging its heels on action, but there is a sense of urgency now on display. That is partly due to domestic pressure: The mass civil disobedience that continues in Fairy Creek has put a spotlight on old-growth logging. It’s also international, as Canada makes bigger and broader commitments to conservation and climate change.
But most of the promises made this week depend on the work ahead, as the province seeks to execute what it has billed as unprecedented conservation.
First Nations, industry leaders and environmentalists all agree on one thing: This transition cannot be achieved without a significant amount of money.
“If the government wants to set themselves up for success here, they absolutely need to come to the table with hundreds of millions of dollars in conservation funding,” Mr. Watts said. “Primarily for the economic relief of First Nations communities, if they choose to defer and ultimately move to permanent protection, so that it’s not a choice between logging and making money, and protecting forests and losing money. It needs to be a fair and equitable choice.”
https://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Globe-Mail-Old-Growth.webp8001200TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2021-11-08 15:11:182024-10-10 10:56:39BC makes big commitment to save old-growth trees from further logging
British Columbia Premier John Horgan patted down his suit pockets, theatrically searching for a misplaced $50-million cheque. The performance was in response to a reporter’s question about Ottawa’s offer to help resolve the ongoing conflict over old-growth logging.
The money was a campaign commitment, and with the federal Liberals returned to office, the province could start figuring out how to spend it. Instead, the province has been dismissive of the proposed BC old-growth nature fund.
Jonathan Wilkinson, the federal Minister of Environment, floated the idea in August as a means to preserve ancient forests from logging. “BC’s iconic old-growth forests are increasingly under threat,” Mr. Wilkinson said at the time.
In an interview on Friday, he said his government is ready to write that cheque, as a bulwark against further loss of biodiversity in Canada. “A first step is to preserve those ecosystems that remain intact,” he said. “And in British Columbia, that includes those old-growth forests that are at threat from the logging industry.”
The BC government also has promised to protect old growth, and has conceded that poor management of its forests has contributed to the province’s dismal record of protecting species at risk. Mr. Horgan has accepted the recommendations of his 2020 old-growth strategic review, which call for legislation that would make the conservation of ecosystem health and biodiversity of British Columbia’s forests an overarching priority.
With that apparent common ground between the two levels of government, Mr. Horgan’s chief complaint could be a simple bargaining tactic.
The $50-million fund “would be a very small amount of money relative to the consequences to the forest industry, to communities and to workers,” Mr. Horgan told reporters on Thursday. “I’m hopeful that the federal government will recognize the importance of us working together on this and will up their game a little bit, so that we can have a real, meaningful discussion and get the conclusions that I know all British Columbians want to see – protection our special places, and continuing to have a foundational [forest] industry, not just now, but well into the future.”
He suggested Ottawa could “add a zero” to the proposed fund as a starting point.
It is an audacious counteroffer, considering the bind that Mr. Horgan’s government finds itself in. Since the RCMP moved to break up blockades that are disrupting logging in the Fairy Creek watershed last May, more than 1,000 people have been arrested. All of this protest against old-growth logging is being staged in the Premier’s riding.
Mr. Horgan’s government has tried to defuse the protests by giving the local First Nations communities, which have interests in the forest industry, a central role in deciding what can be logged and what should be protected. That’s made it awkward for protesters who don’t want to be seen undermining Indigenous rights, but it hasn’t stopped them.
The protesters have said they won’t end their blockades until the province’s ancient forests are protected, and not just in the Premier’s riding. The forest industry says three-quarters of the province’s old-growth forests are already protected, and a balance is needed that allows them access to some old-growth timber. Bridging the gap between those two positions will be costly.
Andrea Inness, forests campaigner for the Ancient Forest Alliance, says Mr. Horgan’s estimates are in the ballpark: Permanent protection of old-growth forests in BC would add up to $500-milllion or more. That’s to buy back tenure from forestry companies, but also to support economic diversification, particularly for Indigenous communities.
But Ms. Inness wonders if the province really wants to make the shift. “They are dragging their heels on the implementation of the old-growth strategic review panel’s recommendations, falling behind on their own implementation timeline, and have failed to commit any funding to expanding protected areas or supporting urgently needed economic transitions.”
Mr. Horgan says there is no “instant gratification” to be had on this file. Two years after commissioning the old-growth review, the province now has set up a technical panel to define just what an old-growth tree is, exactly. “We want to ensure that we’re talking about the same types of trees, large trees, ancient trees, rare trees,” the Premier explained. But he said that work is due to be completed in the weeks ahead.
Mr. Wilkinson says he is ready to dig up more money in Ottawa and help the province find a path out of the Fairy Creek conflict, but BC needs to move beyond temporary deferrals and look at permanent solutions.
British Columbia also needs to up its game.
The original article is only available to subscribers of The Globe and Mail.
https://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Globe-Mail-Old-Growth-Fund.png467700TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2021-09-26 01:15:002023-04-06 19:05:56Ottawa’s offer to help end battle over old-growth logging insufficient, BC says
In the May 2021 edition of Red Bull’s magazine, The Red Bulletin, TJ Watt talks about the devastating before and after photos taken in the Caycuse Valley. Capturing the world’s attention at the end of 2020, Caycuse Valley’s old-growth forests were cut down and TJ’s record of their previous grandeur was a bitter pill to swallow. Sharing photos of this caliber, the hope is more old-growth forests will be saved due to this important work.
As the old-growth logging crisis heats up in Canada, a photographer goes searching for trees to save them.
TJ Watt stands on a 12-foot-wide stump, a former old-growth Western red cedar, overlooking a recent clear cut in the Caycuse watershed on southern Vancouver Island. Photo: Jeremy Koreski
There are no trails in the old-growth coastal temperate rainforests of Canada’s southern Vancouver Island. As I follow TJ Watt through another grabby thicket of stink currant, I offer silent thanks that I’m not the one lugging the camera equipment. We plough through underbrush, wade across streams, climb over moss-covered boulders and fallen logs, and circumvent the trunks of massive trees. It takes us an hour to gain a single kilometer.
Watt moves with the dogged determination of a hunter. He doesn’t seem to tire. His purpose is to locate groves of old-growth trees—giants the size of grain silos that are hundreds or even thousands of years old—and photograph them in order to rally people to their defense through his nonprofit, Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA). He’s been building conservation campaigns this way for over a decade, nearly one-third of his life, but the stakes have suddenly gone up.
The latest science shows that old-growth coastal temperate rainforests are among the world’s best natural defenses against global warming, absorbing and storing even more carbon from the atmosphere than the Amazon tropical rainforest in South America. Yet logging companies in British Columbia continue to harvest old-growth trees, with no signs of stopping. Depending on the species, trees from this region will be turned into a variety of building materials ranging from airplane-frame components to roof shingles. Others will be made into furniture, cabinets and interior woodwork. Some will be sent to specialty mills to create components for musical instruments, like guitar soundboards. On southern Vancouver Island where Watt lives and works, 96 percent of the productive old-growth forests along the valley bottoms—where the largest trees grow—have already been logged. “Big trees are big money for the logging industry, but at a high cost to the environment,” Watt says.
In some ways, Watt is a relative newcomer to old-growth conservation efforts in British Columbia. In the ’90s, Vancouver Island was famously the epicenter of the “War in the Woods,” where mass civil disobedience arrests eventually led to the protection of Clayoquot Sound on the island’s west coast. In the last few months, hundreds of protestors have amassed at Fairy Creek in what is quickly becoming the biggest act of civil disobedience over logging in decades. Watt is taking a different approach to save these last groves: building support among diverse demographics and creating a clear, photogenic message that can ripple through the media. His vision is for the British Columbia government to implement science-based legislation that protects endangered old-growth forests across the province.
“You can’t win this one grove at a time” he says. “It has to be bigger.”
Watt didn’t know what an old-growth forest was until the age of 20. His father was among the first cold-water surfers on southern Vancouver Island, and Watt spent his youth watching waves and entering local skateboarding competitions. “I’m sure I’d seen old growth by that point in my life but just didn’t understand what I was looking at,” Watt says.
In 2005, he signed up for a public outing to the Walbran Valley, home to Canada’s most majestic red cedar forests, that was organized by the Wilderness Committee’s Victoria office. The trip opened his eyes to the grandeur of trees and their plight. “There were all these rivers and beautiful waterfalls and trees probably 16 feet in diameter, 4 or 5 meters wide,” Watt recalls, switching between metric and Imperial measurements in typical Canadian fashion. “To learn that they were at risk of being cut down just totally shocked me.”
Watt’s interest in photography started in high school when he began borrowing his mom’s camera. After graduation, he spent three months backpacking and photographing his way through Southeast Asia but wasn’t sure how to make a career out of it. He ended up back in his hometown working for his dad building houses. Once Watt started taking photos for the Wilderness Committee, he was inspired to enroll at the Western Academy of Photography. He completed the program in 2007.
Ken Wu, then the executive director of the Wilderness Committee’s Victoria office, remembers the day Watt walked into his office and volunteered to take photos. “He was this skateboarding hippie with dreadlocks down to his waist,” Wu recalls. “I looked through his photos and thought, yeah these are pretty good.” Wu initially sent Watt to photograph environmental demonstrations in the city, but it was soon clear that Watt’s skills and interests were stronger in the wild. “He has a tremendous sense of balance, which is really important out there—old-growth forests are among the most rugged landscapes in the world,” Wu says. Wu hired Watt on contract to explore old-growth groves and take photos for marketing materials and press releases. The two men would go on, in 2010, to cofound a new environmental nonprofit, Ancient Forest Alliance, devoted to protecting Vancouver Island’s old-growth forests.
“It just was a perfect fit,” says Watt. “I loved adventure, and I loved the outdoors. And maybe because I came from a skateboarding background the jumping around through the forest part felt like a fun game.”
“That’s a nurse log,” Watt says, pointing out a fallen tree with new saplings starting to grow out of it. I stop, marveling at how much old-growth trees give back to the ecosystem even in death. We’re traipsing through Avatar Grove, a stand of highly photogenic red cedar and Douglas fir that Watt first came across while tree hunting in Pacheedaht territory, in the Gordon River Valley not far from the hamlet of Port Renfrew. In 2012, he worked with the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce to save these 50 hectares (about 124 acres) from being logged. AFA rallied volunteers to build boardwalks and viewing platforms for the trees, and in a stroke of marketing genius, they nicknamed the site Avatar Grove after the blockbuster film. Soon after, in the same region, Watt encountered a 230-foot-tall Douglas fir with a 39-foot circumference—the second-largest Douglas fir tree in Canada—standing alone in a recent clear-cut. Watt’s photos of “Big Lonely Doug” were heartbreaking and effective. Following countless news stories, Canadian journalist Harley Rustad wrote a book, Big Lonely Doug: The Story of One of Canada’s Last Great Trees, in 2018. The BC Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development enacted permanent protection for the tree and 53 others identified by the University of British Columbia’s BC Big Tree Registry.
Port Renfrew, a former logging town, rebranded itself as Canada’s Tall Tree Capital. The results are encouraging. In non-pandemic years, local hotels and B and Bs reported a surge in demand between 75 and 100 percent each year since 2012. New businesses are opening and thriving, like Wild Renfrew, an ecotourism resort and outfitter, and Pacheedaht Pit Stop, the town’s first gas station in two decades. In a place where clear-cutting was once the only means of economic growth, residents now recognize that old-growth trees can provide just as much, if not more, value as part of a tourism-based economy. “When you cut down an old-growth tree, it’s a one-time payout,” Watt says as we climb stairs built into a fern-covered slope to reach the viewing platform for what’s called Canada’s gnarliest tree. “But this,” he says, gesturing toward the whimsical tree, a nearly 200-foot-tall cedar with big knotty burls covering its trunk, “this can provide a sustainable economy for the town indefinitely.”
As affirming as AFA’s early success with Avatar Grove was for Watt, it was also sobering. The feat took two years of nonstop effort for Watt and Wu, who led dozens of hikes to the site and generated hundereds of news articles calling for its protection—plus what Watt calls “a heroic effort” by the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce and local business leaders. “It would be impossible to replicate this for every place,” Watt says as we walk back to his van. “This is one grove out of thousands that are being cut across the province at any given time. It just happened to be one we were able to showcase.”
On a sunny summer day in 2020, Watt sits at his computer at the AFA office, a modest window-lined room in the Central Building in downtown Victoria. Through iMapBC, the government’s free web-mapping application, Watt can access publicly available geographic data like pending cut blocks, active cut blocks and protected Old Growth Management Areas (places such as Avatar Grove). The application enables him to overlay the data onto satellite images, providing Watt the same bird’s-eye view as the logging industry.
We’re looking at a zoomed-in section of southern Vancouver Island’s Nahmint Valley, near the small town of Port Alberni. Watt’s been analyzing satellite images for so long that he can tell the type of forest by the shape and contour of the treetops. Second growth has a lighter green coloring and appears uniform, almost like a lawn. Old growth is darker green, scruffy and rough, with conical shapes and dark shadows that Watt says indicate the tops of very tall, very old trees. “Anything outlined in green is a planned BC Timber Sales cut block,” he says as he scrolls around on the map so I can see the two dozen or so planned cut blocks marring the valley. “If you put them all together, we’re talking more than 600 football fields of old-growth trees that are intended to be logged.”
Watt first visited the cut blocks of Nahmint Valley in 2018, to photograph the old-growth logging in progress. His photos went viral. One of them, of his colleague Andrea standing on a patio-sized cedar stump with its massive trunk lying on the ground behind her, appeared in Reddit’s World News section. The photo, with the headline, “Canada’s Largest Trees Cut Down in Nahmint Valley,” ran alongside stories on Brexit and President Trump.
The public outcry was fierce, a crescendo to the momentum the AFA had been building for years. Around the same time, the BC Chamber of Commerce (representing 36,000 businesses) called on the provincial government to improve old-growth protection for the purpose of tourism, using Port Renfrew as an example. In response, the government of British Columbia appointed an independent panel to undertake public engagement on old growth and provide a report to the Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. The report was expected to drastically alter the way British Columbia manages old-growth trees.
Watt pulls up a link to the 72-page report, “A New Future for Old Forests,” published on April 30, 2020. One of the panel’s 14 recommendations is to immediately defer development (translation: logging) in old-growth forests until the province can improve the way it manages them. Watt hopes the report will end the logging of endangered old growth in British Columbia once and for all—the top-down protection he’s been fighting for. “It’s no longer just environmentalists calling for this change,” he says. “It includes all kinds of non-traditional allies. It’s businesses and unions and scientists and faith groups and outdoor recreationalists.”
But a year later, Watt, Wu and all those who’d hoped for positive change are still waiting. The BC government, despite claiming full commitment to implementing all 14 of the report’s recommendations, is moving at what Watt calls “a snail’s pace.” Meanwhile, industrial logging continues to clear-cut old growth on Vancouver Island and beyond. Which means Watt is still out there with his camera.
Watt knows that Canada will lose many of the groves he photographed—no matter how ancient or charismatic the trees. Logging is just too profitable for the forestry industry, and without a new business model or government support, there’s little incentive for them to change. Ten years in, Watt says it doesn’t get any easier. He recently returned to a favorite find in the Caycuse River watershed—a monumental stand of red cedars likely 1,000-years-old—to find the entire forest clear-cut. The experience was devastating. “Once they’re gone, they’re gone,” Watt says. “Second-growth forests are logged every 50 to 80 years, never to become old growth again.” Intellectually, he knows his role isn’t to save every tree—it’s to give voice to the trees and use his photography to motivate people to get and pressure elected officials to enact greater protection for old-growth forests. That’s ultimately Watt’s (and AFA’s) goal: science-based legislation that protects old growth from the top down and a shift to a sustainable, value added second-growth forest industry instead. But emotionally, it’s tough. “I think for somebody whose greatest love is old-growth trees and forests, I have the best job in the world and the worst job in the world,” Watt says.
When we last spoke, on June 2, 2021, he was fresh off an ancient tree hunt in Fairy Creek Valley, which is adjacent to Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew. Fairy Creek is the last unprotected old-growth valley in southern Vancouver Island that’s still intact. But it’s hanging by a string. At this very minute, logging giant Teal-Jones is bulldozing the roads to access the 12.8 hectares (almost 32 acres) of mostly old growth that it plans to harvest within the Fairy Creek watershed. Environmental activists are on-site, chaining themselves to anything they can, occupying trees and staging road blockades. As of early June 2021, the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) has arrested 185 activists. Watt is trying a new technique—aerial photography. He took his photos of Fairy Creek by helicopter. He hopes to convey the grandeur of this singular river valley by showing it in its entirety, much the way a bald eagle sees it.
Watt’s dreadlocks may be gone, and his heart has been broken by this fight too many times, but he still jumps at the chance to document the lives of the world’s most awe-inspiring trees.
Join us and the AFA to demand that the BC government:
1. Work with Indigenous governments to immediately halt logging in BC’s most at-risk old-growth forests, as recommended by the independent panel.
2. Implement all of the Old Growth Strategic Review panel’s recommendations within the proposed three-year timeline.
3. Allocate funding to support Indigenous-led protected areas, land-use planning, and economic alternatives to old-growth logging.
4. Create a provincial land acquisition fund to purchase and protect endangered ecosystems on private lands.
5. Develop a strategy to support the transition to a sustainable, value-added, second-growth forest sector.
6. Enact legislation that places ecosystem integrity, biodiversity, and ecosystem services over timber values.
https://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/koreski-j-1065-cc-web-16x9-1-1920x1079-1.jpg10791920TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2021-08-10 16:09:102024-10-10 12:07:14The Ancient Tree Hunter
However, in the depths of the watershed, far from the established trails, are remnants of that original old-growth forest – enormous trees many centuries old, still surviving a stone’s throw from the thriving metropolis of Vancouver.
