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Forests minister Pat Bell said Friday that ancient trees in British Columbia need more protection than they now have under existing legislation.

The minister’s acknowledgment that more needs to be done to protect monumental trees is not exactly a revelation. Environmental groups, particularly the Ancient Forest Alliance and the Wilderness Committee have been pushing for it for years.

However, it took the government’s own advisory group, the independent Forest Practices Board to climb on board before Victoria responded. (see story here) In a report released Thursday the board recommended  that the province, forest professionals and timber companies “seek creative means to preserve trees of exceptional size or form, age or historical significance when they encounter them.”

The board waded into the ancient tree fight after a private citizen, University of Victoria professor Hans Tammemagi, filed a formal complaint about logging in the so-called “Avatar Grove” near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island. The complaint was the mechanism that launched the review. The board’s finding lifted the issue beyond the usual polarization that characterizes most of the debate over just how much old-growth needs to be saved.

Bell said in an interview Friday that he has asked the province’s chief forester to review existing regulations and to develop new “tools” for protecting trees that, because of their age, have values that make them worth preserving.

“Certainly we have been hearing the message for some time from different organizations that we should be considering some tools, perhaps new tools that we could use when particularly unique trees are identified. They may be individual tees or small areas like the Avatar Grove that provide incremental value over and above the timber resource value,” the minister said.

He said the tools would likely be surgical in nature, permitting the forests ministry to protect individual trees and the forest patch around them. What these tools will look like, however, will be up to the chief forester.

The move was supported by the leading environmental group in the fight over Vancouver Island old growth, the Victoria-based Ancient Forest Alliance.

“That’s good, considering they appointed the board. It’s their advisory group. The question is, what tools are they going to use to protect monumental trees,” said the alliance’s Ken Wu.

He said the fight is not over, though. Monumental trees are the symbol the alliance is focusing in its fight to protect more old-growth eco-systems.

The trees in question are not just old-growth, which the province characterizes as anything more than 250 years old. The board uses the term “ancient” meaning they are over 500 years old.

The Avatar Grove was named by the alliance after the movie of the same name because the tree trunks are so huge and gnarly. The ancient trees are scattered throughout a much younger forest that likely originated because of fire or high winds about 100 years ago. Some of the area is protected from logging through the government’s old-growth management strategy for the Gordon River watershed. It requires five to 14 per cent of the trees to be protected as wildlife trees patches.

The board found that although the government has a strategy in place to manage the old-growth forest in the Gordon River watershed, there was not sufficient data to estimate the extent of ancient forest on the landscape. Inventories are not that detailed.

The board’s report states that if the government is to manage more precisely for ancient trees, more detailed inventories are required.

Click here for original article [Original article no longer available]

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A raw and striking image of an old-growth tree stump in a clearcut near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island, BC, recently claimed 1^st place in Outdoor Photography Canada magazine’s “Human Impact” photo contest in its latest fall/winter edition. The photo, taken by Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) photographer TJ Watt in the Gordon River Valley last March, shows a stark, foggy clearcut with a man solemnly poised on a giant stump surrounded by logging slash and a fringe of the former forest in the background. See the winning photo here: https://16.52.162.165/pic.php?pID=12  

 

“As a photographer working for a cause you’re always looking for that elusive shot that truly captures both the emotional and the factual aspects of the issue in one image. It’s difficult to get both together but this picture is quickly proving to have done just that. Of the hundreds of thousands of photos I have taken, as sad as it is, this is the one I am most proud of,” notes Watt.

 

Photography is a powerful and essential tool for raising environmental awareness and Watt feels its key benefit lies in its ability to bring remote or unseen places to the public’s eye.

 

“My images focus mainly on the threats to BC’s endangered old-growth forests and often times I am taking photos where less than and a handful of people have stood, if any at all. The rugged rainforests of Vancouver Island go largely unexplored and the clearcuts are very treacherous so it’s really important to be able to share the images from these places that few people see,” says Watt. “If you can’t bring the 4 million people in BC to the woods then you need to bring the woods to them. And now with the power of GPS mapping and Google Earth you can extend that concept to include the entire world.”

 

Watt and a hiking partner snapped the winning shot after they finished leading a public hike through the nearby endangered Avatar Grove (see Watt’s photo gallery here: https://16.52.162.165/photos-media/) – a stand of easily accessible, monumental old-growth forest flagged and surveyed for logging that has caught the attention of thousands of British Columbians, elected officials, and media over the past year.

 

See other photos by TJ Watt of Canada’s largest trees and stumps at:   https://16.52.162.165/photos-media/

 

The Ancient Forest Alliance is calling on the BC Liberal government to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests, ensure the sustainable logging of second-growth forests, and to ban raw log exports to foreign mills.

 

 

You can visit Outdoor Photography Canada magazine’s website here: https://www.outdoorphotographycanada.com/

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In just over a year, the Ancient Forest Alliance has collected almost 7,000 petition signatures, 18,000 supporters and fundraised more than $50,000.

Not bad for an environmental group in it’s infancy, says cofounder Ken Wu.

The non-profit organization founded in January 2010 is working to protect old-growth tree stands through B.C., including some on the West Shore.

“The western communities have some real gems of old growth,” Wu said. “On the Department of National Defence lands in Colwood and Metchosin, you’ve got some of the finest old-growth Douglas fir stands on the planet. It’s a spectacular place.”

AFA members spent the last year hunting the south Island for old-growth stands to document and photograph. It’s trying to put pressure on the B.C. government to protect old-growth stands for future generations.

“I think a lot of people realize this is a spectacular part of the world and the unfortunate thing is that the B.C. Liberal government still contends that old growth forests are not endangered on Vancouver Island, which is nuts … our old growth forests are now in tatters and are now a teeny fraction of what they once were.”

AFA’s discovery of an old-growth stand near Port Renfrew, dubbed Avatar Grove, has some of the largest trees on the Island and in Canada, Wu said. It’s in an area zoned for logging, with rights belonging to Surrey-based Teal Jones Group. The AFA is now offering guided public hikes to the area every month.

“It’ll knock your socks off,” Wu said. “It’s got Canada’s gnarliest tree. This tree’s got a burl that is 12 feet wide — something that can only happen in an old-growth forest.”

Looking forward into 2011, Wu says he’s optimistic about the upcoming leadership races for the B.C. Liberals and B.C. NDP.

“There’s great potential for new progressive environmental policies, but we’ve got to snowball the size of the movement to ensure that happens,” he said.

The AFA is trying to collect 100,000 signatures for a petition calling on the government to protect old-growth forests and forestry jobs.

One of the ways it intends to do that is through a provincewide slideshow tour. The team will be traveling across the province delivering photo presentations about the most endangered old-growth stands, including Avatar Grove, Flores Island and the upper Walbran Valley.

Wu says the AFA already enjoys tremendous support from government representatives regionally, provincially and federally. Mike Hicks, CRD Juan de Fuca regional director; John Horgan, Juan de Fuca NDP MLA; Keith Martin, Liberal MP; the Sooke Tourism Association and the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce are all calling for the protection of Avatar Grove, according to Wu.

“Ultimately, it’s up to the BC government to make a land use order to protect the Avatar Grove and eventually to establish new protective areas too. We need to protect the old-growth across Vancouver Island and throughout much of the province because it’s so endangered now.”

 

Link to original article no longer available: https://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_south/goldstreamgazette/news/115027064.html