Ancient Forest Alliance

Old-growth forests could bring tourists

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The Feb. 20 Raeside cartoon is a perfect representation of the Liberal government’s stance on the fate of our world-class ancient forests. The cartoon depicts Gordon Campbell promoting the province to Olympic tourists by showing off our spectacular old-growth forests. The tourists, upon returning next summer to take photos, find a field of giant stumps.

This continues to be the fate of many of our last stands of giant trees in southern B.C. and shows a lack of understanding of what draws many people to the best place on Earth.

Vancouver Island has the potential to be the Costa Rica of the north, with a thriving eco-tourism market that brings in tourists from all over the globe to see our amazing temperate rainforests. These dynamic ecosystems clean our water, fight climate change and contain mammoth 1,000-year-old trees with trunks more than six metres wide and 90 metres tall.

The government is complacently allowing the clearcutting of these rare gems and their subsequent conversion to much smaller and ecologically simpler second-growth tree plantations.

People are not travelling from across the world to see plantations and clearcuts. The government needs to say enough is enough in regard to logging our natural old-growth heritage and protect what little we do have left, while ensuring a sustainable second-growth, value-added industry.

A ship loaded with raw logs leaves the Alberni Inlet on Vancouver Island.

It’s time for the BC government to curb raw log exports and boost value-added forestry jobs, say unions and environmental groups

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Vancouver – Between 2013 and 2016, more raw logs were shipped from BC than during any other four-year period in the province’s history, prompting two forest industry unions and three leading environmental groups to call for a ban on raw log exports from old-growth forests and a bold government action to plan to stimulate BC’s flagging forest sector. See the Canadian Centre for Policy Alterniatives Press Release with communications info for intereviews.
The call follows new research released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ BC Office (CCPA-BC) that shows how exports of raw, unprocessed logs are surging. If these logs were processed in some of BC’s hardest hit forestry communities, at least 3,600 new jobs could be generated.
“This carnage has to stop,” says Arnold Bercov, president of the Public and Private Workers of Canada (PPWC), one of two unions representing BC pulp and paper mill workers.
“Last year, BC forest companies exported enough raw logs to frame nearly 134,000 homes, which equals roughly half of Vancouver’s standing single-family homes. Thousands of good-paying jobs in rural communities are at risk every day that the government fails to act,” he added.
The PPWC, along with Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union, the Ancient Forests Alliance, Sierra Club of BC and the Wilderness Committee, say the Province should enact a bold three-point plan to curb exports and stimulate jobs.
1. Place an immediate ban on all exports of raw logs from old-growth forests.
2. Immediately impose progressively higher taxes on log exports from second-growth forests to encourage investment in domestic mills.
3. Introduce new policies to increase value-added forest manufacturing and jobs in rural and First Nations communities.
“We are extremely troubled by present trends. BC’s biggest log exporters are decimating old-growth forests and exporting huge numbers of raw logs, while the industry continues to bleed manufacturing jobs,” says Torrance Coste, Vancouver Island campaigner for the Wilderness Committee. “Worse, the industry is on the same dangerous path in younger, second-growth forests which are our only hope for the future. ”
Four years of log export data analyzed by CCPA-BC researcher and resource policy analyst Ben Parfitt uncovered a number of disturbing trends in log exports from BC.
• Between 2013 and 2016, nearly 26 million cubic meters of raw logs, with a combined sales value of more than $3 billion, were shipped from BC  – more than any other four-year period since record keeping began.
• More than one in three logs exported in the past five years came from centuries-old old-growth forests, including from the Great Bear Rainforest.
• Most log exports in the past five years came from public lands under direct provincial control, not from private lands where the BC government has no jurisdiction, which is a sharp reversal from previous norms.
• Nearly half of all export applications in 2016 were by member companies of the Coast Forest Products Association, one of BC’s most powerful lobbies for continued raw log exports.
“One huge concern for forest industry workers and environmental organizations alike is that the door appears to be wide open for companies to close sawmills and simply increase their log exports. That is a recipe for disaster for our environment, our economy and rural and First Nation communities,” Parfitt says.
Ancient Forest Alliance

World’s largest Douglas fir at risk, fearful environmentalists charge

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The world’s largest Douglas fir could be at risk, say Vancouver Island environmentalists.

The 74-metre-tall tree towers over the surrounding forest in the Red Creek area east of west coast town of Port Renfrew, about 100 km northwest of Victoria.

But new logging tape marks an area about 50 metres away from the giant tree and environmentalists fear the tourist attraction will shortly be surrounded by a clearcut, making it susceptible to being blown down.

“The San Juan Valley is like a giant wind tunnel and this increases its exposure,” said Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Alliance, a Vancouver Island-based environmental organization.

“This is the biggest Douglas fir on earth and it should be a first-class tourist attraction, but people will be walking through a clearcut to get to it. It is totally myopic.”

In Port Renfrew, tourists often ask how to find the Red Creek fir, said Chamber of Commerce president John Cash.

Chamber members, who want to see big trees preserved as tourist attractions, recently put up directional signs to the fir so visitors would not get lost on logging roads.

Wu said it appears the area comes under B.C. timber sales designation, meaning the province considers it a cut-block for small businesses.

But Forests Ministry spokeswoman Vivian Thomas said there are no immediate plans to harvest in the Red Creek fir area.

“In fact they helped improve the road access so people could go view the tree,” she said.

“Also, the tree itself is part of a public recreation site, so the immediate area is protected from logging.”

The Ancient Forest Alliance is supporting a proposal by Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca Liberal MP Keith Martin to extend Pacific Rim National Park down the west coast of Vancouver Island, with an expanded park to include the Red Creek fir.

Some moviegoers leave Avatar depressed

The Avatar blues

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When you stop and think about it, post-Avatar depression isn’t as bizarre a phenomenon as it seems.

If news reports and postings on fansites such as Naviblue and Avatar Forums are to be believed, many filmgoers are feeling as blue as those tall, peace-loving Na’vi aliens after watching James Cameron’s stunning 3-D sci-fi epic.

Some have even said they felt suicidal after removing their 3-D goggles when the closing credits rolled on the blockbuster that, with a $2.5-billion box-office take, has dethroned Titanic as the world’s top-grossing film.

Such dark thoughts have spawned online forum threads with titles like Ways to Cope With the Depression of the Dream of Pandora Being Intangible.

“I have a depression. It makes me want to go to Pandora and stay there,” wrote a user named loverofnature, referring to the idyllic planet where gentle blue-skinned natives who live in harmony with nature are threatened by Earthmen.

In an apparent metaphor for the way European settlers wiped out native Americans, the glowing planet is being exploited by a corporation strip-mining a rare mineral, since the human race has depleted Earth’s natural resources.

When some twentysomething moviegoers left a screening of Avatar at Silver City the other day complaining they felt “bummed-out” that Earth wasn’t more like Pandora, I felt like snapping: “Get a grip! It’s only a movie.”

It wasn’t until I took a closer look at some online forums for fans and like-minded victims of Avatar-induced melancholia that I realized it isn’t just the usual web wingnuts sounding off. Reassuringly, thoughtful concerns are also being aired.

Many viewers recognize that Avatar — apart from its exotic, computer-generated and Oscar-worthy beauty — is a cautionary environmental parable that shrewdly blurs the line between fact and fiction.

While it’s bizarre some avid Avatar fans don’t seem to get that Pandora, with its wondrous alien ecosystem and weird wildlife, is a Utopian fantasy world, their sudden sorrow is understandable.

The pristine planet is a reminder of how beautiful our own blue planet was before we messed with it.

(One idealistic poster named Jorba has even pledged to start his own Na’vi tribe on Earth. OK.)

“Are there other people out there who think humanity is going south?” asks another, LifeOnATree.

She laments how she and so many others feel compelled to buy things that aren’t necessary.

“I need them to ‘bear’ the world around me,” LifeOnATree writes.

Avatar is just one of many tales of doom and gloom out there. From such apocalyptic fantasies as I Am Legend, The Road and The Book of Eli to chilling real-world exposés of humanity’s self-destruction like An Inconvenient Truth and Collapse, it appears “feel-bad” movies have become fashionable.

“When we have these movies that talk about the end of the world or life as we know it, or an unstoppable force, it can put us into a sense of helplessness or dread or fear,” Victoria registered clinical counsellor Lisa Mortimore explains. “Psychophysiologically our bodies can go into immobility in response to that shutdown, and that can translate into depression.”

While Avatar might spark a so-called depression, I see it as more of a rude awakening with an upside. Such films can inspire a shift in consciousness and an appreciation for what we’ve too long taken for granted.

Ken Wu, co-founder of Victoria-based Ancient Forest Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of B.C.’s old-growth forests, says it irks him so many people are unaware we have “the real Pandora” on our doorstep.

“It struck me as being an incredible analogy of what’s happening on earth,” says the five-time Avatar viewer. “We have giant moss and fern-draped ancient trees almost as large as Home Tree, spectacular creatures like bears, wolves, mountain lions, wolverine and elk in our forests, and giant blue whales, killer whales, elephant seals and huge stellar sea lions along our wild coast. People just need to be more aware.”

Wu advises those stricken with depression to take a stand.

His group has even come up with a three-step “cure”, starting with helping to protect disappearing ancient trees such as Avatar Grove, the film-inspired nickname for a 10-hectare stand on Crown land near Port Renfrew designated for logging.

“Get out and experience nature, take action to defend nature and get others to do the same,” Wu says. “You have to learn to appreciate this beautiful planet.”

Related Stories

Ken Wu beside the Red Creek Fir. Growing in the San Juan Valley near Port Renfrew BC

Largest Douglas fir in the world at risk say environmentalists

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Note: In the following article the Forests Ministry representative states that there are no immediate plans to log near the Red Creek Fir – despite the fact that there is an entire logging cutblock laid out adjacent to the Red Creek Fir demarcated by flagging tape labelled “Falling Boundary” (see photos) and a “BC Timber Sales” sign at the top of the hill. We will be inquiring with them for more specifics regarding their statement and the nature of the situation. Note also that my quote should read that visitors would walk “by” a clearcut (ie. in very close proximity to), rather than “through” a clearcut. Also note that Forest Service Recreation Sites offer no legislated protection – they regularly disappear on the whims of the Forest Ministry – and clearly this one isn’t even big enough to prevent a falling boundary just one trees length away from the Red Creek Fir. – Ken Wu and TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance

At almost 74 metres tall, the largest Douglas fir in the world towers over the surrounding forest in the Red Creek area east of Port Renfrew.

But new logging tape marks an area about 50 metres away from the giant tree, and environmentalists fear the tourist attraction will shortly be surrounded by a clearcut, making it susceptible to blowdown.

“The San Juan Valley is like a giant wind tunnel and this increases its exposure,” said Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Alliance, an Island-based environmental group.

“This is the biggest Douglas fir on earth and it should be a first-class tourist attraction, but people will be walking through a clearcut to get to it. It is totally myopic.”

In Port Renfrew, tourists often ask how to find the Red Creek fir, said Chamber of Commerce president John Cash.

Chamber members, who want to see big trees preserved as tourist draws, recently put up directional signs to the fir so tourists would not get lost on logging roads.

The Ancient Forest Alliance has erected its own sign beside the 1,000-year-old tree, giving its dimensions. The sign replaces one erected by the province decades ago, which was rusted, lying on the ground and surrounded by broken glass.

Wu said it appears the area comes under B.C. Timber Sales designation, meaning the province plans out cutblocks for small businesses.

But Forests Ministry spokeswoman Vivian Thomas said BCTS has no immediate plans to harvest in the Red Creek fir area.

“In fact they helped improve the road access so people could go view the tree,” she said.

“Also, the tree itself is part of a public recreation site, so the immediate area is protected from logging.”

The Ancient Forest Alliance is supporting a proposal by Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca MP Keith Martin to extend Pacific Rim National Park down the west coast of Vancouver Island, with an expanded park to include the Red Creek fir.

Photos by TJ Watt showing Falling Boundary tape – Click for Larger versions

 

TJ stands in the forefront wearing a black hoodie. Behind him stands a number of old-growth cedars and other ancient trees.

A Channel News – Giant Fir Threatened

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PORT RENFREW – Conservationists say the BC government is putting the future of the World’s tallest Douglas fir tree in jeopardy.

The Red Creek Fir Tree towers above a stand of old growth forest about a half hour from Port Renfrew. But the Ancient Forest Alliance says nearby logging could threaten the mighty fir. If the forest around the tree was cut down, the group says the mighty fir tree would be exposed to fierce winds roaring up the valley.

They want the province to consider protecting the red creek fir tree and the surrounding forest by creating an ancient forest reserve.

Rare stand of old-growth trees near Port Renfrew only partly protected says eco-group

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Logging is already prohibited in part of a stand of massive old-growth trees near Port Renfrew that the community and environmentalists want protected, but it’s not nearly enough, say members of the Ancient Forest Alliance.

A section of the stand, nicknamed Avatar Grove, is in an old-growth management area, meaning no cutting is allowed, Forests Ministry spokeswoman Vivian Thomas said yesterday.

However, TJ Watt, co-founder of the environmental group, said ministry maps show only a small ribbon along the Gordon River is protected, while most of the biggest trees are marked for cutting.

“The most valuable stands of cedars and firs are outside the old-growth management area,” he said. “The only way that area is going to function as a proper ecosystem is if the whole area is protected. Putting a ribbon down the creek fractures everything.”

The ministry map shows three small sections of old-growth management areas in the immediate vicinity of the stand of huge and twisted trees.

Ken Wu of the alliance said the government should consider expanding the management area, intended to protect biodiversity, to cover the entire stand.

Surrey-based Teal-Jones Group has cutting rights and has marked the area for logging, but did not respond to numerous calls yesterday. Thomas said the company is in the preliminary planning stages, and has not yet submitted a cutting-permit request.

John Cash, president of the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce, said protecting extraordinary stands of old-growth, such as Avatar Grove, is the best way forward for the struggling community.

A survey five years ago found the biggest tourist draw in Port Renfrew is Botanical Beach and the biggest money draw is fishing — although that industry is having difficulties — but most people also want to see the big trees, Cash said.

“Everyone wants to see the Red Creek Fir and it’s almost inaccessible,” said Cash, who recently put together a big-tree tour map so tourists wouldn’t get lost on the logging roads.

“Every attraction we can bring in is one more day we can keep people here.”

Cathedral Grove draws 1.5 million people a year, but shows only a small sliver of old-growth, while areas near Port Renfrew show the entire natural habitat, Cash said.

The Pacific Marine Circle Route is beginning to bring people into the community of 270 people, he said. “But we have to have something to show people, otherwise we are dying.”

Jessica Hicks, owner of the Coastal Kitchen Cafe, is hoping the grove and other spectacular stands of old-growth will be protected. “The trees are such a draw. People want any excuse to just get out there for the day and seeing the big trees is pretty amazing,” she said.

Nearby Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park is difficult to reach, so a nearby attraction would provide the wow factor, she said. “This could be the future of Port Renfrew.”

Ancient Forest Alliance

British Columbia: Clearcutting the "Avatar Forest"

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An exceptionally spectacular and accessible stand of newly discovered old growth redcedars and Douglas firs near Port Renfrew has recently been marked for logging. The unprotected forest on Crown lands about 10 kilometers north of Port Renfrew, nicknamed the “Avatar Grove” after the hit movie for its awe-inspiring beauty and alien-shaped, enormous trees covered in burls, was discovered in early December last year by Vancouver Island photographer and “big tree hunter” TJ Watt and a friend.

In a return visit made last week by Watt and environmentalist Ken Wu, both co-founders of the new Ancient Forest Alliance (www.ancientforestalliance.org), Avatar Grove was found to be marked for logging, with many of its trees spray painted and bearing falling-boundary flagging tape.

“This area is just about the most accessible and finest stand of ancient trees left in a wilderness setting on the South Island,” stated Ken Wu. “All other unprotected old growth stands near Victoria are either on steep, rugged terrain far along bumpy logging roads, or are small isolated stands surrounded by clearcuts and second-growth and near human settlements. This area is a wild region on vast Crown lands, in a complex of perhaps 1500 hectares of old-growth in the Gordon River Valley – only 5 minutes off the paved road, right beside the main logging road, and on relatively flat terrain. This could become a first rate eco-tourism gem if the BC government had the foresight to spare it. We’ll be putting in a formal request that they enact a Land Use Order to protect it quickly before it falls.”

Avatar Grove is in Tree Farm License (TFL) 46. TFL 46 is being logged by Surrey-based Teal Jones and through the BC government’s BC Timber Sales program involving smaller companies. The Grove is home to dozens of some of the South Island’s largest redcedars and Douglas firs, including several trees with trunks that are over 12 feet in diameter. Moreover, several of the cedars have incredible, alien shapes. With giant bulbous burls ballooning out from their trunks, winding, snake-like roots of hemlock trees growing up their sides, and giant limbs draped in mosses and hanging ferns, many of the trees seem to be from the rainforests of the fictional planet of “Pandora” in James Cameron’s hit movie, “Avatar”. Yet despite its magnificence and easy access, the Grove is slated for logging any day now.

Old-growth forests are important for sustaining species at risk, tourism, clean water, and First Nations traditional cultures. Avatar Grove is in close proximity to the Gordon River, home to steelhead and salmon runs, and evidence of cougars and elk were apparent in the Grove.

Based upon an analysis of satellite photographs, about 88% of the original, productive old-growth forests on southern Vancouver Island (south of Barkley Sound and Port Alberni) have already been logged, including 95% of the productive old-growth on low, flat terrain. Across the Island as a whole, about 75% of the original productive old-growth forests have been logged, including 90% of the valley bottoms where the largest trees grow. Avatar Grove is one of the very few flat, valley-bottom old-growth forests left on the entire South Island.

Ancient Forest Alliance

James Cameron: Fox didn’t want Avatar’s ‘treehugging crap’

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Filmmaker James Cameron has spoken before about how his Avatar is a cautionary environmental tale. In a MTV interview this week, he says Fox wanted to remove its “treehugging crap,” but environmentalists now want to create a curriculum based on it.

Cameron says he didn’t initally pitch Avatar, which depicts a world of stunning beauty that’s threatened with destruction, as an ecological warning. So Fox Studio executives were taken aback:

When they read it, they sort of said, ‘Can we take some of this tree-hugging, FernGully crap out of this movie?’ And I said, ‘No, because that’s why I’m making the film.’

Cameron says Avatar doesn’t provide facts about the planet’s future, but its “eye candy” aims to jostle viewers out of their environmental “denial” and motivate them to work for change.

Denial is a metal response based on fear… You have to fight an emotional response with an emotional response….

If you’re tuned in to what’s happening in Avatar, you start to feel a sense of moral outrage when you see the tree fall [destroying the Na’vi’s home], and it’s a compassionate response for these people

Then you feel a sense of uplift at the end as good vanquishes evil. If you put those two things together, it actually creates a ripe emotional matrix for people to want to do something about it.

Cameron says the film’s had quite an impact so far:

We’re getting a tremendous amount of feedback from environmental groups, from people with specific causes,” Cameron said, “whether it’s indigenous people being displaced by companies to do mining or to do oil drilling, or if it’s environmental groups saying, ‘Let’s do some curriculum around Avatar.'”

Environmental group: Protect rare forest giants marked for logging near Port Renfrew

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Some of the giants stretch straight to the sky for 80 metres, while others are bulbous and misshapen, the knots and gnarls betraying their age.

The old-growth Douglas firs and red cedars have stood in the valley beside the Gordon River for centuries, but now, in the almost undisturbed grove, the end is spelled out in spray paint and logging tape.

The approximately 10-hectare stand of trees on Crown land, 15 minutes outside Port Renfrew, is marked for logging, although a Forests Ministry spokeswoman says no cutting permit has yet been issued.

If the newly formed environmental group Ancient Forest Alliance has its way, logging plans for the area would be scrapped.

“This area is just about the most accessible and finest stand of ancient trees left in a wilderness setting on the south Island,” said co-founder Ken Wu. “This is potentially a first-rate ecotourism gem and it’s so close to Port Renfrew.”

The stand, nicknamed Avatar Grove after the movie because of the twisted shapes, giant sword ferns and hanging mosses, was located by self-styled big-tree hunter TJ Watt in November. But when he and Wu returned this month, the biggest trees were surrounded by falling-boundary logging tape and marked with blue spray paint.

What make the grove different from other fragments of south Island old growth is the relatively flat terrain, nearby areas of protected old-growth such as the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park, and its proximity to Port Renfrew, a community attempting to attract eco-tourists.

“All other unprotected old-growth stands near Victoria are either on steep, rugged terrain, far along bumpy logging roads or are small isolated stands surrounded by clearcuts and second-growth and near human settlements,” Wu said. “This is one of the last of the old-growth valley bottoms.”

On Monday, the Ancient Forest Alliance will deliver a letter to Forests Minister Pat Bell asking that the stand be protected immediately by a Land Use Order, similar to the process being used to protect areas of Haida Gwaii and 1,600 hectares of coastal Douglas fir zones on the east side of Vancouver Island.

Watt is desperately hoping the province will step in.

“This is my passion. This is what gets me excited,” he said, staring at the crazily twisted trees. “You can’t help but develop a natural attachment to this area when you see it.”

Getting up close and personal with the Avatar Grove is not a walk in the park. There is no defined trail, massive rotting trees litter the ground and unexpected holes are covered by moss.

But it’s worth it, said Watt, hoisting himself up onto a giant burl.

“It would be a huge tragedy to lose something like this,” he said.

“Tourists come from all over the world to visit the ancient forests of B.C. and Avatar Grove stands out as a first-rate potential destination if the B.C. Liberals don’t let it fall.”

Bell could not be contacted yesterday afternoon and there is uncertainty about which company is planning to log the area.

Surrey-based Teal-Jones Group is cutting in the area and Forests Ministry spokeswoman Vivian Thomas said the Pacheedaht First Nation has a licence to remove wind-throw nearby.

“But we haven’t received a cutting-permit application in that area and you need an approved cutting permit before you can start logging,” she said.


T.J. Watt of the Ancient Forest Alliance stands by a stand of old growth forest just outside of Port Renfrew that is designated for logging
Photograph by: Debra Brash, Times Colonist