An aerial view of The Klinse-za (Twin Sisters) Mountains with grey, low hanging clouds hovering above them.

The Narwhal: This new provincial park is the largest created in BC in a decade

June 18, 2024
By: Ainslie Cruickshank and Steph Kwetásel’wet Wood
The Narwhal

See the original article.

The greatly expanded Klinse-Za / Twin Sisters Park will protect nearly 200,000 hectares of habitat for endangered caribou in BC’s northeast

A significant stretch of endangered caribou habitat in northeast BC has been permanently protected in the newly expanded Klinse-Za / Twin Sisters Park, First Nations and the BC and federal governments announced today.

The announcement comes more than four years after West Moberly First Nations, Saulteau First Nations and the provincial and federal governments agreed to work together to recover caribou herds teetering on the brink of extinction. The deal included a commitment to create a park to protect crucial caribou habitat in the mountainous area northeast of Mackenzie and west of Hudson’s Hope and Chetwynd, in the heavily industrialized Peace region.

“We’re showing that when we work together collaboratively — not just say we’re going to work together, but we actually sit down and start applying the principles of working together — we can do some amazing things,” Chief Roland Willson of West Moberly First Nations told The Narwhal.

West Moberly First Nations, Saulteau First Nations and the provincial and federal governments have announced an expansion of the Klinse-Za / Twin Sisters Park, protecting key habitat for endangered caribou herds. Photo: Photo: David Moskowitz / Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative

Klinse-Za Park (pronounced Klin-see’-za) was just 2,700 hectares — about seven times the size of Vancouver’s Stanley Park — in 2020 when the deal was forged. Over the next two years, the park was expanded to 30,000 hectares. Today’s announcement extends the park to nearly 200,000 hectares, making it almost two-and-a-half times the size of E.C. Manning Provincial Park in the Cascade Mountains in the province’s southwest.

Alongside vital caribou habitat, the park also protects the Twin Sisters, two mountains of cultural importance to Treaty 8 First Nations.

In contrast to other recent conservation announcements — including the $1 billion nature agreement announced late last year — the BC government shared news of the Klinse-Za / Twin Sisters park quietly in a press release Friday morning with comparatively little fanfare, even though the provincial park is the largest established in BC in a decade.

The greatly expanded BC park makes a noteworthy contribution to the provincial government’s pledge to protect 30 per cent of provincial land by 2030, in keeping with global commitments to protect nature at a time when close to one million species are at risk of extinction, many within decades.

A male caribou with a tracker on his neck standing amongst green bushes.

The new provincial park protects habitat vitally important for endangered caribou. Photo: David Moskowitz / Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative

“This announcement is a good thing for everybody,” Willson said. “We’re trying to bring balance back. Maybe it’s not just all take. We gotta give some back, or we’re going to wind up in this situation where we have nothing left — truly nothing.”

In a press release, BC Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy George Heyman said, “The decline of caribou is a complex problem, and we continue our work to stabilize populations. Providing a large area that protects caribou and their habitat from development is a critically important step forward that is consistent with the agreements we first announced in 2020.”

Protected area gives caribou calves ‘a landscape that will support them’

Tim Burkhart, director of landscape protection at the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, called the announcement a “really important milestone” for Indigenous-led caribou recovery.

Caribou populations in the Peace region have suffered dramatic declines due to the combined pressures of hydro dam development, oil and gas production and extensive logging and road-building. In the last century, caribou have declined by 55 per cent in BC, according to the BC government news release.

The Klinse-Za herd declined from about 250 caribou in the 1990s to just 38 in 2013, according to a 2022 study in the journal Ecological Applications.

Since 2014, West Moberly First Nations and Saulteau First Nations have led a successful, though costly, maternity pen project.

Each year pregnant caribou and, later, their calves are kept in maternity pens, safe from natural predators such as wolves and under the watchful eye of Indigenous Guardians until the calves are strong enough to have a better chance of surviving outside the pen.

Two caribou with tags on them stand amongst green trees.

First Nations-operated maternity pens protect caribou calves until they have a chance at surviving in the wild. Penning, combined with predator reduction, has helped increase the population of the Klinse-Za herd from 38 to 138 caribou over the past decade. Photo: David Moskowitz / Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative

A herd “within months of being extirpated” has tripled in size, Willson pointed out. Though the Klinse-Za herd remains at risk of extinction, the population had recovered to 138 caribou by 2023, aided by the maternity pen and wolf culls.

Two existing maternity pens will now fall within the boundary of the expanded park, according to the BC government.

“Our sacred Klinse-za / Twin Sisters area will now be protected for our people forever,” Chief Rudy Paquette of Saulteau First Nations said in the press release. “This is another step in the process by which we are proving that we can recover endangered species and protect the sacred lands of First Nations people, while also providing for healthy ecosystems and diverse economies.”

Burkhart lauded the success of the maternity pen program. “Folks working on orca, salmon and other species across the world should really look to the leadership of West Moberly and Saulteau and how they brought a local herd back from the brink,” he said.

The expanded protected area was “designed specifically to create habitat that is abundant enough to bring the herd to a self-sustaining level,” Burkhart said. “So we know now that when the baby caribou are released from that maternal pen, they have a place to stand and a landscape that will support them going forward.”

A map of the expanded Klinse-Za / Twin Sisters Park is the largest provincial park created in BC in a decade. Map: Province of BC

The expanded Klinse-Za / Twin Sisters Park is the largest provincial park created in BC in a decade. Map: Province of BC

The two First Nations, BC government and other partners will work together to develop a management plan for the park to protect Treaty Rights and Indigenous cultural values, restore forestry roads and logged areas to natural habitat and manage recreation sustainably, the release said, noting snowmobiling has been restricted in most areas of the park since 2021 to protect caribou.

Industrial activity has also been restricted in the park for several years. The federal government has provided $46 million to compensate industry and tenure holders affected by the implementation of the 2020 partnership agreement, as well as $10 million to support a regional economic diversification trust for the region, according to the news release.

Conserving habitat is essential for endangered caribou recovery

Habitat protection is crucial to the long-term survival of at-risk caribou herds. Although forestry and other resource activities may be allowed in areas adjacent to the BC.park, Burkhart noted the 2020 agreement prioritizes caribou recovery when such activities are planned.

While the Klinse-Za herd has seen remarkable growth, the population is a long way from being large enough to allow West Moberly and Saulteau First Nations to once again harvest caribou for food. In a 2023 study, the nations worked with scientists to estimate “meaningful abundance”: how plentiful the Klinse-Za herd would have to be to harvest enough caribou for 15 meals for every family in their nations over one winter, without harming the herd’s stability. They found the herd would need 3,000 animals — meaning it would need to increase by at least 20 times.

The Klinse-Za / Twin Sisters Park also offers habitat for three dozen other at-risk species, including grizzly bear, wolverine, fisher and numerous plant and insect species.

Willson said the Klinse-Za mountains are sacred to the Dena-za people and were once a place of refuge.

“In times of need, we would go to the mountains, and they would take care of us,” he said. “There were lots of caribou, lots of sheep, lots of goats, lots of moose. The waters were clean. The fish were good to eat. There was an abundance in the mountains.”

Today, Willson said, there are hardly any caribou or mountain goats left and the fish and waters are contaminated. But the nations are working to restore habitat where they can.

BC park announcement brings province closer to 2030 protection goals

Willson said it took more than 20 years to bring the Klinse-Za park to fruition. The process, which began under the BC NDP government in the 1990s, was halted when the BC Liberals (now called BC United) came to power in 2001 and only resumed after the BC NDP returned to power 16 years later.

Countries around the world, including Canada, have agreed to protect 30 per cent of their land and waters by 2030 as part of a global effort to address the growing biodiversity crisis. According to the World Economic Forum, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse represent one of the largest risks the world faces over the next decade, with dire consequences for the environment, humankind and economic activity if not addressed.

But scientists warn nature may require far more protections. Up to 50 per cent of lands and waters globally may need to be conserved to maintain biodiversity, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

According to the Canadian Protected and Conserved Areas Database, BC is leading the provinces in meeting targets. As of December 2023, BC had conserved 19.7 per cent of its land. The expanded 2,000-square-kilometre Klinse-Za park covers approximately 0.2 per cent of the province.

But some groups question the BC government’s accounting.

Earlier this year, the BC chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society published a report that raised concerns BC inflated its progress by counting fragmented stretches of forest that may not have permanent protection toward its conservation targets.

At the time, the BC government said it was working on a new approach to assessing conserved areas.

Caribou antlers sit on a plateau in the foreground. In the background is a small alpine lake and mountain peak.

Expanding the Kinse-Za provincial park is a small step toward meeting BC and federal government commitments to conserve 30 per cent of land and waters by 2030, as part of global efforts to stem the loss of nature. Photo: David Moskowitz / Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative

“It is a bold vision, but there is a path to meeting 30-by-30 through Indigenous-led conservation,” Burkhart said.

“This is the scale of new protected areas that we want to see,” he said of the newly expanded park. “We need a lot of pieces like that to make it work.”

Willson pointed out caribou need vast swaths of land and it’s still uncertain if the expanded park will be enough. He said the nations will have to monitor the impacts and continue to restore habitat. “We’ve got to do what we can, where we can,” he said.

“Our future generations are going to know that the caribou are still here because of the work that we’ve done today.”

 

The Guardian: ‘A distressing reality’: our beautiful planet under threat – in pictures

June 18th, 2024
The Guardian
See the original article here

Ancient Forest Alliance photographer TJ Watt’s award-winning image of a giant old-growth cedar on Flores Island in Clayoquot Sound was also featured alongside the other winning images in The Guardian. Click the image below to see the full story and list of winning images!

 

CNN: Striking photos show how our planet is changing – for better and for worse

June 18th, 2024,
Nell Lewis, CNN
See the original CNN article here

A photograph of a solitary man walking along terraces in China, rust-red rivers in Alaska and a gargantuan western red cedar are among the winning images of the Earth Photo 2024 competition.

The award – created in 2018 by Forestry England, the UK’s Royal Geographic Society and visual arts consultancy Parker Harris – aims to showcase the beauty of our planet, as well as the threats it is facing, from climate change to toxic pollution.

More than 1,900 images and videos were submitted to this year’s competition by photographers and filmmakers from all over the world. The winners were announced last night at a ceremony at London’s Royal Geographical Society, ahead of an exhibition at the same location showcasing the evocative imagery.

Photographers Jean-Marc Caimi and Valentina Piccinni took the top prize with their “Tropicalia” series, which documents how Sicilian farmers are adapting in response to climate change. “Rising temperatures, shifting rainfall patterns, and an increased risk of extreme events have transformed what was once Europe’s breadbasket into a testing ground for adaptation and survival,” they said in a press release.

Their images show how farmers are having to diversify: some are giving up their fields to solar energy systems, while others are pivoting to grow exotic fruits such as avocadoes and mangoes that thrive in the now tropical environment.

“Each inspiring image highlights the important stories of resistance, innovation and resilience at the frontline of climate change,” Louise Fedotov-Clements, head of Earth Photo’s jury and director of Photoworks UK, told CNN. “The series as a whole serves as an example of the future that awaits the whole continent.”

Whilst on a trip to Shetland, the biggest thing I wanted to do was photograph the Gannets as they feed underwater. The photography takes place at sea around some of the Shetland’s remotest headlands. Dead bait is used using fish the Gannets would normally eat locally sourced around Shetland. To be able to capture what goes on under the water was an unbelievable experience.

Other winning imagery depicts possible climate solutions, including Jennifer Adler’s “Corals of the Future” series that focuses on ocean science and the efforts to restore marine ecosystems in the world’s largest underwater coral nursery. A short film, “Ser Guardianes Madre Arbol” (“Becoming Guardians of Mother Tree”), by Marc Lathuillière, celebrates an indigenous community in northern Colombia that is fighting for the protection of rainforest and their ancestral lands.

The works highlight “the beauty, fragility, crisis and change happening in our natural environment,” said Mike Seddon, chief executive of Forestry England, in a press release. “Bringing us closer to landscapes, wildlife and communities from across the planet in this way sparks new conversations and reflections. And it prompts us to focus on the creative solutions needed for these environments to flourish beyond our lifetimes.”

Fedotov-Clements added that photography and film “represent a formidable means for raising awareness that can encourage us to adapt, innovate and invent sustainable solutions.”

“From the impact of climate change to the inspiring stories of resilience, this year’s powerful edition is sure to inspire stimulating dialogues about our environment,” she said.

 

A giant redcedar tree on Flores Island. Ahousaht Hereditary Representative Tyson Atleo stands at its base.

Watt’s award-winning image, Flores Island Cedar, features an enormous redcedar tree – perhaps the most impressive tree in Canada – with Tyson Atleo, an Indigenous Hereditary Representative of the local Ahousaht people, standing at the tree’s base providing a sense of scale.

A giant redcedar tree on Flores Island. Ahousaht Hereditary Representative Tyson Atleo stands at its base.

Times Colonist: Photo of old-growth cedar tree on Flores Island wins international award

June 21, 2024
Times Colonist
Read the original article here

An image of a massive western red cedar towering over an Ahousaht hereditary leader has won an award in the Royal Geographical Society’s Earth Photo 2024 competition.

Titled Flores Island Cedar, the photo shows Tyson Atleo standing at the base of a western red cedar that’s estimated to be more than 1,000 years old.

The tree, which has been dubbed “the Wall,” or “ʔiiḥaq ḥumiis,” meaning “big red cedar” in the Nuu-chah-nulth language, stands about 46 metres tall and is five metres wide at the base.

Taken by TJ Watt, a photographer for the Ancient Forest Alliance, the photo won the National Trust Attingham Award for images showing the work or impact of volunteers protecting habitats under the threat of climate change.

The competition saw 1,900 photography and film submissions in 11 categories. Award-winning photographs were taken from Sicily, the Florida Keys, and Colombia’s Majo Atrato basin, as well as on Watt’s photo on Flores Island.

When the photograph was first taken, the tree was growing on unprotected Crown land. On Tuesday, B.C. announced an agreement with the Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations to protect about 760 square kilometres of Crown land in Clayoquot Sound, where Flores Island is located.

“It’s not always the case that the forests featured in my photographs have a happy ending. But in this case, I’m so grateful that they do,” Watt said in a statement.

Watt’s photo will displayed at a dozen locations in the U.K., including at the Royal Geographical Society in London, where the Earth Photo exhibition continues until Aug. 21.

 

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A giant redcedar tree on Flores Island. Ahousaht Hereditary Representative Tyson Atleo stands at its base.

Photo of Giant Old-Growth Cedar Wins Prestigious International Award

For Immediate Release
June 21, 2024

Ancient Forest Alliance Photographer TJ Watt awarded Royal Geographical Society Earth Photo 2024 prize for Image of the Enormous Tree in Clayoquot Sound, Canada, featured on CNN and in The Guardian.

The award coincides with the largest old-growth protected areas victory in decades announced earlier this week in Clayoquot Sound, including for the forest pictured.

Ancient Forest Alliance Photographer and Campaigner TJ Watt has received an award in Earth Photo 2024, an international photography competition currently on display at the Royal Geographical Society in London, UK. His award-winning image, titled Flores Island Cedar, features a gargantuan redcedar tree – perhaps the most impressive tree in Canada – with Tyson Atleo, an Indigenous Hereditary Representative of the local Ahousaht people, standing next to the tree’s base providing a sense of scale. Watt located the enormous tree in 2022 on Flores Island in Clayoquot Sound in the unceded territory of the Ahousaht on western Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. The contest, which saw over 1900 entries from around the world and 11 award winners, celebrates photography and moving images that tell compelling stories about our planet, its inhabitants, its beauty, resilience and fragility.

“I’m thrilled and honoured to have received an award in the Earth Photo 2024 contest. I always hope my images of old-growth forests reach as wide an audience as possible, inspiring people and raising global awareness of the need to protect them. The tree in the winning image is the largest one I’ve ever found in nearly 20 years of searching for big trees in BC. It’s more than 17 feet (5 meters) wide near its base, 151 feet tall (46 meters), and likely well over a thousand years old, given its size. Unlike most other trees, it grows wider as it gets taller, making it perhaps the most impressive tree in the country when you’re standing before it. In the photo, Ahousaht Hereditary Representative Tyson Atleo stands alongside the mammoth-sized trunk, adding a sense of scale during our visit to the tree in 2023”, stated TJ Watt, Photographer & Campaigner with the Ancient Forest Alliance.

A giant redcedar tree on Flores Island. Ahousaht Hereditary Representative Tyson Atleo stands at its base.

Watt’s award-winning image, Flores Island Cedar, features an enormous redcedar tree – perhaps the most impressive tree in Canada – with Tyson Atleo, an Indigenous Hereditary Representative of the local Ahousaht people, standing at the tree’s base providing a sense of scale.

Coincidently, the photo award announcement happened to closely coincide with the biggest old-growth protected areas victory in decades when, earlier this week, the leadership of the Ahousaht, Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, and BC NDP government declared the protection of 76,000 hectares of land in new conservancies in Clayoquot Sound near Tofino, BC. Most of the lands committed for protection are comprised of some of the grandest and most intact coastal old-growth temperate rainforests on Earth, including the forest where Watt’s winning photo was captured.

“It’s not always the case that the forests featured in my photographs have a happy ending. But in this case, I’m so grateful that they do. The announcement of the new conservancies in Clayoquot is incredible news, and I extend my deepest gratitude to the leadership and vision of the Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht people, who’ve now secured protection for some of the grandest old-growth rainforests on Earth in their territories. Their proper care and stewardship go back thousands of years, and as a result, one can still find themselves standing in magnificent ancient forests home to trees that have lived for more than a millennium. A special thanks to Tyson Atleo and the Ahousaht Guardians for their time spent with me in the woods as well”, stated Watt.

Watt’s image was specifically awarded the National Trust Attingham Award for images that show the work or impact of volunteers protecting habitats under the threat of climate change. A second image of Watt’s titled Fallen Giants, featuring him laying atop a freshly fallen old-growth redcedar tree cut down in Quatsino territory on northern Vancouver Island, was also shortlisted in the competition. Both images were part of a body of work Watt created with support from the Trebek Initiative, which also named him a National Geographic and Royal Canadian Geographical Society Explorer.

The winning images of Earth Photo 2024 have also attracted international attention, with high-profile features in The Guardian and CNN. BC-based photographer Taylor Roades was also awarded for her series Alaska Rust Rivers.

To view the collection of winning images online, visit the Royal Geographical Society website or the Parker Harris website.

“Congratulations to all the shortlisted and winning photographers for their stunning and thought-provoking images. Photography is a powerful tool for raising public awareness about the many issues our fragile Earth faces. Thanks to the Royal Geographical Society, Parker Harris, Forestry England, and all those who made Earth Photo possible, helping to get these images and messages out in front of the world”, stated Watt.

Earth Photo was jointly created in 2018 by Forestry England, The Royal Geographical Society and Parker Harris, one of the leading visual arts consultancies in the UK. For those looking to view the images in person, they will be on display at the Royal Geographical Society in London, UK, from June 18 – August 21, 2024, with additional exhibit times listed here.

Clayoquot – Biggest Old-Growth Protected Areas Victory in Decades

For Immediate Release
June 19, 2024

Biggest Old-Growth Protected Areas Victory in Years: Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation and BC NDP Government Declare Protection of 76,000 hectares in Conservancies in Clayoquot Sound.

Conservationists are applauding the leadership of the Ahousaht, Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation and BC NDP government for yesterday declaring the protection of 76,000 hectares of land – an area about the size of Manning Provincial Park – in new conservancies in Clayoquot Sound near Tofino. Most of the lands committed for protection are comprised of some of the grandest and most intact coastal old-growth temperate rainforests on Earth, and the new protected areas will represent the largest old-growth forest protected areas victory in BC since the Great Bear Rainforest conservancies were announced in 2006. The historic milestone also includes major support from provincial, federal and conservation sources to facilitate sustainable economic development opportunities for the communities to facilitate their economic and social well-being.

Ahousaht Hereditary Representative Tyson Atleo looks toward an ancient redcedar deemed the “most impressive tree in Canada” on Flores Island in Clayoquot Sound.

“This is truly a historic and great day – it warms my heart and makes me feel a deep contentment inside to see this vision finally come to fruition. This is a huge old-growth victory for the people and ecosystems in Clayoquot Sound, and for the people of BC and for the world. We greatly applaud the Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht leadership for moving forward with their visions to protect the old-growth ecosystems in their territories, while working to build sustainable economies, and we give great thanks to the BC NDP government, the federal Liberal government and organizations like Nature United for supporting their initiatives. I expect the Clayoquot conservancies will further inspire many other communities across BC and Canada to undertake increased protection of the ecosystems in their territories to support their cultures and their people’s well-being, while working to build sustainable economies”, stated Ken Wu, Endangered Ecosystems Alliance executive director.

“I extend my deepest gratitude to the leadership and people of the Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation for bringing their incredible conservation visions to life in Clayoquot Sound. The embattled coastal rainforests of Clayoquot are famed for having some of the most impressive old-growth forests and trees on the planet, and it fills me with the greatest joy to know that the majority are now finally safe. The BC NDP government and the federal Liberal government also deserve credit for supporting this amazing initiative and bringing significant conservation dollars to the table. As we face the global climate and biodiversity crisis, conservation victories like these, which protect some of the grandest ecosystems on Earth while supporting the creation of more sustainable, conservation-based economies for local Indigenous people, are an inspiring model for other communities who may still be considering alternative paths forward and help buoy the heart. Today is a fantastic day”, stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance photographer and campaigner.

More work remains to be done regarding potential mines in the remaining unprotected portions of Clayoquot Sound, while funding is needed for the long-term management of the protected areas.

An aerial view over the ancient forests of Meares Island in Tla’o’qui’aht territory, the site of the first blockades against old-growth logging in 1984 in Clayoquot Sound.

Climbers scale Big Lonely Doug in Pacheedaht territory against a bluebird sky.

Financial Review: Why we should embrace tall-tree tourism

June 4, 2024
By Ute Junker
Australian Financial Review

Original article here.

Only 34 per cent of the world’s surviving forests are old-growth ones, and many are under threat. If California’s Redwood National Park is anything to go by, there is hope, however.

This is a tree that demands attention. Thrusting 70 metres into the sky – about the height of a 20-storey building – the towering Douglas fir has a diameter of almost four metres. That sort of girth doesn’t develop overnight: this specimen has been sinking its roots into the rich earth of Canada’s Vancouver Island for around 1000 years.

There is another reason this tree stands out. It stands alone.

Once sheltered by the old-growth forest that enveloped it on all sides, its sheer verticality is cast into stark relief by the stump-studded scrublands that surround it. Fourteen years ago loggers razed the entire forest save for this one survivor, dubbed Big Lonely Doug. Doug owes his survival to a logging company surveyor who – for reasons unknown – wrapped a ribbon around its massive trunk on which were written the words “Leave tree”.

“Big Lonely Doug represents both incredible beauty and incredible destruction,” says conservation photographer TJ Watt. Describing himself as a “big-tree hunter”, Watt spends much of his time exploring remote parts of Vancouver Island in search of the region’s last arboreal giants.

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

Photographer and co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, TJ Watt. © TJ Watt

As co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, he has worked for years to protect the region’s oldest trees from logging. Stands of tall trees such as Avatar Grove – identified by activists in 2009 and placed under government protection three years later after a protracted campaign – have become tourist attractions in their own right. Nearby Port Renfrew, formerly a quiet fishing village, now markets itself as the Tall Trees Capital of Canada.

The battle between tourism and logging is not a new one, but the Canadian province of British Columbia is a critical frontline. The temperate rainforests that blanket the province’s Pacific Coast are places of incredible beauty, where soft light filters through the high tree canopy, loamy scents of rich soil rise with every footfall, and the mosses and lichens that blanket most surfaces soften every sound.

They are a vital environment for grizzly and black bears.

These forests, which comprise more than 60 per cent of the province, also play a vital role in combating climate change. Studies have shown the tall trees in old-growth forests are especially effective at sequestering large amounts of carbon. Rainforests are oxygen-rich environments: they cover less than 10 per cent of the world’s land surface yet produce nearly a third of our oxygen.

Only around 30 per cent of the world’s surviving forests are old-growth ones, however, and many are under threat. Across the world, communities are turning to tourism as a way to protect these precious landscapes. The success of these projects is not only vital for local communities – in British Columbia’s case, predominantly First Nations people – but also for the health of our planet.

British Columbia’s government recognises that its forests draw tourists. Tall trees feature prominently on the province’s tourism website, along with the slogan “Super, Natural British Columbia”. But Watt says a bigger commitment is needed.

“If the B.C. government got on board and improved the signage and roads, and did some more promotion, you would see such an incredible boom. We could be like the redwoods of Canada – that’s a dream of mine.”

A woman in a blue jacket stands on a boardwalk looking up at an amazing ancient western redcedar. She is surrounded by lush green old-growth forest.

A hiker admires an ancient red cedar tree in the unprotected Eden Grove near Port Renfrew, BC. © TJ Watt

South of the border with British Columbia, the redwood forests of northern California are home to sequoias and Douglas firs that stand up to 100 metres tall. They are proven money-spinners. The US National Parks Service reports that in 2022, 458,400 visitors to Redwood National Park spent around $US31 million and sustained more than 400 jobs.

Different countries take different approaches to marketing their old-growth forests. In Waipoua on New Zealand’s North Island, the emphasis is on particularly mighty specimens such as Tāne Mahuta, the king of the forest. The largest kauri tree in the country, Tāne Mahuta stands over 51 metres tall, with a girth of almost 14 metres.

On the Kii Peninsula on Japan’s Honshu island, where pilgrims have followed the Kumano Kodo trail through shady forests for more than a thousand years, the experience is as much about communing with culture as it is about marvelling at nature.

A hiker looks up to the lofty tree tops in the Milkshake Hills Forest Reserve in Tasmania’s Tarkine Rainforest.

A hiker looks up to the lofty tree tops in the Milkshake Hills Forest Reserve in Tasmania’s Tarkine Rainforest. Alice Hansen

An increasing attraction for some visitors are the wellness benefits associated with spending time among tall trees. Study after study has indicated that immersion in nature can improve everything from heart health to emotional wellbeing, and help stave off cognitive decline.

“There are so many physical and mental health benefits from going to these ancient natural places, embedding a little natural code in people who are usually living in busy urban environments,” says Mark Olsen, chief executive of Tourism Tropical North Queensland.

Olsen is intimately involved with Australia’s most successful tall-tree tourist destination, the Daintree Rainforest. One of the oldest rainforests in the world, listed as a World Heritage site since 1988, the Daintree’s flora is as remarkable as the region’s cassowaries and tree kangaroos.

Twelve of the planet’s 19 families of primitive flowering plants are found here, including 50 species rarely seen anywhere else. The Daintree is also home to the world’s tallest conifer, the bull kauri, which can grow up to 50 metres in height.

Since 2019, the park has been jointly managed by the Jabalbina Yalanji Aboriginal Corporation and the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, and the cultural knowledge of the Eastern Juku Yulanji people is now a key part of the tourist offering.

Being introduced to the landscape by an Indigenous guide changes your perspective, says Olsen. “You no longer see a wall of green. You see a cultural landscape.”

Just as in British Columbia, Australian Indigenous communities are benefiting from tourism. “They get to look after Country, to stay on Country, to teach the language connected to that landscape. It’s about the inseparability of story and place,” Olsen says.

An overhead view of the Daintree Forest in Tasmania.

The Daintree Rainforest is a precious resource. Jason South

The Daintree may be a success story but elsewhere in Australia, “irreplaceable” tall-tree forests remain at risk, says Amelia Young, the Wilderness Society’s director of national campaigns. “Because of our evolutionary history, these forests are unlike those found anywhere else on Earth. There are so few left, [yet] they are incredibly significant for biological and cultural reasons.”

These forests include the jarrah trees in Western Australia’s southwest, which are “still subject to deforestation, principally for bauxite mining”; the mountain ash forests of Victoria’s Central Highlands region; and, of course, Tasmania’s old-growth forests.

An edited image depicting the before and after the effects of mining on the left, and the old jarrah forest on the right.

Alcoa bauxite mining operations in an area that was once jarrah forest in Western Australia. Getty/Nine News

Last year The Wilderness Society released its Big Tree State report showcasing eight potential sites for tall-tree tourism in the Huon, Styx and Tyenna valleys. It estimated that an initial investment of $745,000 would generate 139,000 visitor days and $20.2 million in revenue for regional communities.

Tasmania’s government has since promised to introduce new protections for tall trees, but Young says this is only part of the solution. “We also need to protect younger forests so they can become old forests.”

Of course, forest tourism brings its own challenges. In California’s Redwood National Park two years ago, the National Parks Service was forced to close off an area around Hyperion, spruiked as the tallest tree in the world. Trespassers face a $US5000 fine ($7500) and six months in prison.

Even though the National Park Service had kept quiet about the exact location of the soaring redwood – at 115 metres, it is taller than the Statue of Liberty – so many people had found their way there that the ground around its base had eroded, potentially endangering its roots.

Wilderness areas require particular protections, says Dr Susanne Etti, the global environmental impact manager for Intrepid Travel. The company hosts multi-day treks in Tasmania’s Tarkine Rainforest, and has implemented protective measures there ranging from waste-removal processes to managing contaminants.

“Our leaders are very clear about the dangers of contamination from pathogens,” she says. “Cleaning your boots at the start of a trip must be second nature.”

Three lodges with canvass roofs sit at the edge of the forest looking out onto a very still Clayoquot Sound at Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge.

Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge is literally embraced by the forest.

Luxury tourism operators are also finding ways to ‘immerse’ their guests in landscapes that remain relatively untouched. At Clayoquot Wilderness Resort, an exclusive wilderness camp on Vancouver Island’s wild west coast, room rates start at $CA2900 ($3190) a night.

General manager Sarah Cruise says she sees a physical change in travellers during their stay: “You watch your guests come in drained, and see them filling up on green.” The effect of being surrounded by these towering trees fulfils our deepest needs as a species, she adds.

Gesturing to the forest outside her office, Cruise says: “This is our home, this is where we belong – we just don’t know it.”

 

Six of the many images that are depicted on AFA's greeting cards, including Big Lonely Doug, an old-growth sunset, waterfall, the San Juan Spruce, Cheewhat Giant, and Avatar Grove

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12 images of the AFA greeting cards, including old-growth sunset, Big Lonely Doug, Mossy Maple Grove, Roosevelt elk, Avatar Grove, San Juan Spruce, an aerial image of Flores Island, and many more!

All cards are 20% off! Here are some of the images you can get on your cards.

 

AFA's TJ Watt stands in a brutal cutblock that used to be an Old-Growth Management Area.

Times Colonist: Canada’s logging industry is seeking a wildfire ‘hero’ narrative

May 26, 2024
By Stefan Labbe
The Times Colonist

Original article here.

BC and Canadian forestry associations aim to tell a story that places them as the ‘hero’ in a fight against wildfires. One critic says the strategy is ‘mendacious and dangerous.’

On a rainy Friday in April, industry executives and government officials were sitting on the fourth floor of a Vancouver casino hotel. From the stage, a pitch for the future of forestry was on repeat: what if logging companies could be the heroes who saved British Columbia from wildfires?

Many of the speakers at the annual BC Council of Forest Industries (COFI) convention focused on how the sector could return to higher levels of harvest or slow the pace of government regulations. Then the conversation turned to wildfires.

David Coletto, head of the market research firm Abacus Data, presented the results from a poll he designed with COFI. After Canada’s most destructive wildfire season on record, the results suggested the BC public was ready to accept a narrative that the forestry industry could act as a saviour.

As Coletto put it, everybody in this province agrees who is the villain: it’s the fire.

“And so now you have a place to be a hero in that story,” he said, speaking to members of the logging industry in the room. “That’s a complete paradigm shift to where you were a few years ago, where you were often seen as the villain.”

Leaning on the data, COFI president and CEO Linda Coady said BC needs a “compelling story” that attracts investors, one that describes a convergence between fixing wildfires and increasing the supply of wood fibre.

Jamie Stephen, the managing director of the energy and resources consulting firm TorchLight Bioresources, put it another way.

“Counterintuitively, if governments and the public want forestry to contribute to climate mitigation in Canada, we have to harvest more, not less,” he said.

Does logging more prevent wildfires?

The call to re-frame forestry as the solution to wildfire comes less than a year after the most destructive season in Canada’s recorded history burned an area roughly half the size of Italy.

Experts interviewed for this story agreed the best solution to a growing wildfire crisis is to reduce the amount of forest fuels that have built up for more than a century — the result of unbridled wildfire suppression and logging practices that have left forests primed to burn. But just who should decide how to do that has divided many in industry, government and science.

On one side, the timber sector says it should drive the solution; on the other, critics say it’s dangerous to allow an industry that helped spawn the problem direct its solution through their version of “forest management.”

​“It appears to be that they’re asking government and Canadians to write a blank check… It’s disaster capitalism — where industry takes advantage of a crisis to make money,” said Julee Boan, the Canada program project manager for the National Resource Defense Council.

Boan said the record 2023 wildfires “really scared people” and left many looking for answers to a “wicked and complex problem” too big for any single sector to deal with.

“This is really complicated,” said Boan, who also has a PhD in forestry science. “They need to be part of this discussion on what to do. But they can’t be leading it.” ​

A plume of smoke erupts from a square piece of land during the Donnie Creek Fire in 2023.

The 2023 Donnie Creek wildfire north of Fort St. John, BC, was the province’s largest ever in terms of area burned. BC Wildfire Service

​The disagreement hinges on what appears to be a simple question: does logging more reduce wildfires? Glacier Media asked seven experts in wildfires and forest ecology to help answer that question.

Karen Price, an old-growth ecologist who served as a technical advisor on BC’s Old Growth Strategic Review, said she now frequently hears the argument for logging to solve wildfires from people inside the Ministry of Forests.

She described the argument put forward at the COFI conference as “mendacious and dangerous” and that she has “seen no evidence to support logging to reduce wildfire risk in most of BC’s ecosystems.”

Price said thinning — removing small trees, leaving big ones and then burning understories — can reduce fire risk in some fire-dominated ecosystems. But in the thin-barked ecosystems that make up most of BC, those practices would burn big trees.

“And even worse, where people have thinned in the name of ‘fuel reduction,’ they’ve taken the big trees and left small ones, removing old-growth values with no decrease in wildfire risk…” said Price.

‘Forest management’ far more nuanced than ‘logging’

Price pointed to evidence from BC, collected in May 2023, when BC Forest Service ecologist Paula Bartemucci carried out a field visit in a forest at Deception Lake outside the town of Smithers. The forest had earlier been deemed to have a “sufficiently high fuel hazard to warrant treatment.” A contractor was brought in to thin the forest and remove 15 tons of surface fuels per hectare, according to her report.

The forest there has spruce up to 200 years old and is classified as “big-treed old forests.” But after it was thinned, the forest “no longer had large, standing dead trees, large downed wood, large live trees, or abundant regeneration of various sizes,” wrote Bartemucci.

“The treated forest has lost old forest structure and function.”

Bartemucci later added that “the thinning treatment will likely make the site vulnerable to fire” — a result of increased drying, stronger winds, and lower relative humidity than before.

Price said that report is part of a body of evidence suggesting only fire-dominated forests of interior BC should be thinned and burned with low-intensity fires.

Pink and purple fireweed blooms in a meadow of burnt snags from a forest fire. The air is hazy and the outline of a rounded mountain is in the distance.

Fireweed grows among forest fire tree snags in BC’s Kootenay National Park. James Gabbert / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Most of the forest ecologists interviewed for this story agreed that limiting wildfires would require a combination of leaving moist forests unharvested, leaving burned forests unsalvaged, and encouraging the re-growth of more fire-resistant deciduous trees.

​​Lori Daniels, a professor in the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry, said the forestry industry would need to go through a transformative change if it wants to be part of the solution to wildfires.

“While it is true that fuels need to be reduced and reconfigured across many landscapes of interior BC, forestry as it is currently practiced in BC contributes to the wildfire problem. So more of the same is deeply problematic,” said Daniels in an email.

Mathieu Bourbonnais, an assistant professor at UBC Okanagan’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences, said that if logging to reduce wildfires means more cutblocks and more conifer tree plantations of a single species “then it won’t help at all.”

Bourbonnais said mechanical thinning may use some of the same equipment as logging but generally involves removing fibre that is not profitable, such as small trees and saplings.

“They aren’t wrong in that we need to figure out ways to remove large amounts of hazardous fibre from many of our forests, but how to do that is far more nuanced than ‘logging.’ I hear this a lot but conflating logging with fuel treatments is a problem,” said Bourbonnais.

Evidence from U.S. show limits of ‘forest management’

Forest ecologist Rachel Holt, who also served on BC’s Old Growth Technical Advisory Panel, said that for forest management to actually reduce wildfires, it needs to focus on feeding value-added mills with small bits of wood — not chipping logs to feed the pellet industry and not exporting barely processed timber.

When Holt hears the words “forest management” she says it’s never clear what vision is actually being talked about. Rarely, she said, is there a recognition that to be successful, forest management will require cutting fewer trees.

“I hear the same words, but they don’t mean the same thing,” she said. “They are talking about sanitizing the forest of its biodiversity values — i.e. its old trees, its dead trees. They are talking about creating an agricultural forest.”

One 2022 study looking at thinning practices across the American West found “active management” led to widespread logging of fire-resistant live trees and snags. Degradation of wildlife habitat was “functionally equivalent to clear-cutting the forest understorey” in many cases leading to “weed-infested woodlands or savannahs that look nothing like the original forest.”

High-severity wildfire, found the study, is “substantially underestimated in thinned areas.”

A firefighter for the BC Wildfire Service prepares to cut down trees to reduce potential fire fuel. He wears read and stands among many trees and logs, and much greenery.

A firefighter from the BC Wildfire Service’s Rhino Unit Crew prepares to cut down trees to reduce potential fuel on the south edge of the Stoddard Creek wildfire. The 2023 wildfire season was BC’s most destructive ever. BC Wildfire Service

Dominick DellaSala, who led the study as the chief scientist at Oregon’s Wild Heritage, said he is now working on studies across southeast Australia, the western U.S. and Canada that suggest previously harvested young forests “prime the fire pump” and burn hotter than old forests. In each region, he said logging has replaced old forests with slash and densely packed trees grown on a plantation model.

“And everyone knows when you start a fire, you start with kindling, small material, not the gigantic trees that you get in an old-growth forest,” he said.

DellaSala, who has been testifying about the effects of logging before the U.S. Congress since the 1990s, said in recent years, the U.S. timber industry has ramped up a lobbying campaign that frames wildfire as a solution only they can fix. The evidence suggests the “complete opposite” of what the timber industry is saying, with “messaging is akin to tobacco-cancer denialism and climate change denialism.”

“Right out of those playbooks,” DellaSala said.

A 2020 joint investigation involving the Oregon Public Broadcasting, The Oregonian/Oregon Live, and ProPublica uncovered documents that showed the timber industry aimed “to frame logging as the alternative to catastrophic wildfires through advertising, legislative lobbying and attempts to undermine research that has shown forests burn more severely under industrial management.”

In one 2019 presentation to the Oregon House Committee On Natural Resources, Chris Edwards of the Oregon Forest Industries Council showed a slide of a timber-framed building next to a young child with an oxygen mask.

“Where would you rather store carbon?” it reads. “Here? Or here?”

A national campaign to show ‘Canadian Forestry Can Save the World’

In Canada, using wildfires to influence public opinion appears to only just be taking off. Holt, who attended the COFI conference, said it was the first time she heard BC’s forest industry explicitly planning to frame itself as heroes ready to solve wildfires. She said she was shocked by the open conversation on how to influence public opinion and government.

But a closer look at forestry industry groups across Canada shows BC is not the only province where such a public narrative is taking shape.

Many of the largest forestry companies operating in Canada count themselves as members of multiple industry groups. Paper Excellence, West Fraser and Weyerhaeuser are all members of both the BC-based COFI and the Forests Products Association of Canada (FPAC).

According to Meta’s Ad Library, FPAC has spent thousands of dollars and reached millions of people on its “Forestry for the Future” campaign. The ads frame industry as players reducing wildfire risk as early as 2022. In one advertisement shared across Facebook and Instagram, the national industry group tells people to “take action” by emailing “your MP to support the policies that will improve forest conditions and keep communities safe.”

It goes on: “We can help mitigate wildfire risk through responsible forestry.”

On June 8, 2023, near the height of the 2023 wildfire season, FPAC’s president and CEO Derek Nighbor presented a blueprint for the campaign in a presentation to the Maritime Lumber Bureau in Saint John, N.B.

“Persuasion and opinion change are not something that happen overnight. Retention of information requires multi-platform saturation, memorable executions, and consistency of message to seed the underlying facts,” reads one slide.

The presentation, first reported by the Halifax Examiner, then lists a number of campaign activities — on transit shelters, at airports, through a “Capturing Carbon” documentary and through its “Canadian Forestry Can Save the World” podcast.

Other activities include TikTok and Instagram influencer partnerships, Indigenous partnerships and cross-platform digital advertising. By June 2023, the public influencing campaign had already reached 13.1 million Canadians — more than a quarter of the country’s population.

The presentation ends with a three- to five-year plan in which FPAC looks to expand its reach and appeal “to drive policy change and the sector’s place as a critical part of a growing, green economy.”

Glacier Media asked David Coletto what role Abacus Data had in shaping FPAC’s Forestry for the Future campaign, and who came up with the idea for COFI to use wildfire as a way to turn the forest industry into the ‘hero.’

Coletto declined to comment.

Familiar tactics from the same PR firms

Melissa Aronczyk has spent years tracking the PR strategies corporations and politicians use to reshape the narrative around environmental problems. A professor of media studies at Rutgers University, Aronczyk said FPAC and COFI’s public messaging are all well-known tactics.

“They are sometimes used in crisis situations, but more often these tactics are part of a long-term strategy to change the narrative around the industry to appear less environmentally destructive. This is a common playbook that gets opened up time and time again,” she said.

What’s remarkable about the playbook, Aronczyk said, is that it’s been around since at least the 1990s, an indication they are effective in influencing both the public and politicians.

Like COFI, documents show FPAC has also leaned on market research from Abacus Data to frame its Forestry for the Future campaign. Founded in 2010, the market research firm was formally chaired by Bruce Anderson, who worked alongside Coletto while leading accounts for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Canadian Energy Pipelines Association, among others, according the website of his current PR firm spark*advocacy.

Anderson was also the founding partner of the Earnscliffe Strategy Group back in the 1990s, a firm that more recently has carried out lobbying for Pathways Alliance, a coalition of six fossil fuel companies that together account for 95 per cent of Canada’s oil sands production.

Aronczyk learned of the connections in a recent peer-reviewed study she carried out with two colleagues from Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. The research, published earlier this month, found the coalition had engaged in several examples of greenwashing — including producing non-credible claims to the public and selectively disclosing and omitting information.

Aronczyk said public relations firms are “notorious for their coordination and communication across industry sectors,” and often share resources and strategies through industry coalitions.

She said Abacus’s latest work for Canada’s forestry industry appears to be carrying on that tradition.