Blog Archive Layout

Eco-tourism in Port Renfrew

Jul 21 2011/in News Coverage

Port Renfrew, long a logging town, has realized they can capitalize on the protection of their natural assets to keep the community alive.

The Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce has partnered with the Ancient Forest Alliance, the advocacy group that leads tours of the majestic ‘Avatar Grove’, to funnel more tourists into the area and feed the local economy.

The two organizations launched an info centre Thursday, July 14 that will hopefully be a hub for visitors looking for information about Avatar Grove and a boom for local businesses.

“What we used to rely on to sustain Port Renfrew was logging, but the tables have turned,” said Rosie Betsworth, chamber president.

She said while the partnership with an environmental group initially raised eyebrows among area residents, the forest alliance isn’t a “radical” group, instead one that aims to educate people gently about the importance of protecting old-growth forests.

“Their application is soft and it works.”

And it is working. The Ancient Forest Alliance holds tours once a month through the grove, and an average of 50 people show up each time, many from across Canada and Europe. TJ Watt, campaigner and photographer for the alliance, said thousands have come through the grove since he first discovered it in late 2009.

“There are five, six, seven cars there on an average day,” he said. The maps available in the info centre provide directions on how to reach the grove, a 20-minute drive from the village centre and then a 15-minute hike. It features the world’s biggest Douglas fir and Canada’s gnarliest tree, covered with a 10-foot wide burl at its base. Watt estimates the oldest tree in the grove is 500 years old.

Betsworth said the flow of visitors coming to see the grove is translating into real growth for the village, and she can understand why.

“The town is small, unique, green and clean,” she said. Everywhere you turn there’s something else to see.”

The community now has its first strip mall- a row of businesses with a restaurant, a market and the info centre, as well as a growing list of accommodations, eateries and eco-tourism opportunities.

She admits that the quality of the West Coast highway needs to be improved, and the switchbacks need to be gentler.

“The pressure is on” to keep the Pacific Rim Circle Route, a logging road which connects Port Renfrew to Lake Cowichan, maintained.

Watt thinks local businesses are on-board with this new tourism strategy.

“I find that most business owners have made the connection between protecting the earth and raising funds,” he said.

However, he’s not yet assured that the tourists will be able to visit Avatar Grove indefinitely.

On Watt’s second visit to the grove in February 2010, he noticed surveyor tape around some of the trees. Since then, it’s been “a long, drawn-out battle for the last year and a half” to get the grove protected. The government is currently consulting with Teal-Jones Group, which has logging rights. Watt thinks that with the frenzy of people coming in to see the trees, it would be in the government’s best interest to

“It’d be way too backwards to cut it down at this point.”

Link to Sooke News Mirror article: https://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_south/sookenewsmirror/lifestyles/125824828.html

The Cheewhat Giant is over 6 meters (20 feet) in trunk diameter

Meet Cheewhat, Canada’s largest tree — and help the alliance keep giants like it safe

Jul 18 2011/in News Coverage

Tucked deep in the Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island sits the Cheewhat cedar, Canada’s largest tree.

“It’s like arriving at a small planet. You wouldn’t know it was there driving along a logging road unless someone showed you the spot,” said Ken Wu, co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, an organization focused on protecting old-growth forest and promoting sustainable forestry jobs.

“Luckily, it’s in the borders of a national park that was made 40 years ago.”

The giant western red cedar reaches 56 metres high and spans six metres around, containing enough wood to make 450 telephone poles. It’s accessible by a logging road and by hiking in.

“It must be close to 2,000 years old,” Wu said.

While Parks Canada celebrated 100 years protecting trees like the Cheewhat Saturday, Wu said large stumps littering the area around the park are a sign that more needs to be done to save others like it.

“A lot of people think logging of old growth has ended, when it’s actually the norm on public land on B.C.’s coast,” he said.

“We’re saying that the collapse of the ecosystem as a result of resource depletion also results in the collapse of rural employment in those industries. We’ve seen it in fisheries and we’ve seen it actually happen over a 20-year span now with the collapse of coastal forestry employment.”

Instead, the organization advocates for the logging of second-growth forest where trees have been re-planted, “like the rest of the country and the rest of the world is doing,” Wu said.

Hannah Carpendale, outreach co-ordinator with the alliance, said it’s jarring travelling from the protected park to the areas that have been clear-cut. “Sometimes it’s hard to take it all in, the amount that’s been lost,” she said. “It’s not just the trees, it’s the entire ecosystem and everything that comes with it.”

The group has launched a petition in support of their cause and “have thousands of supporters now,” Wu added.

So far, the provincial government has said they’re considering increasing protection for old-growth forest and some of the largest trees near Port Renfrew.

Wu grew up in the prairies of Saskatchewan, where “you could hug a tree with one hand,” but has lived on the island for the past decade.

He became fascinated with old-growth trees as a 10-year-old when he saw a photo of six people dancing on a large stump.

“It blew me away that we had trees like that. Then I found out we still do,” he said. “You’ve got some of the biggest trees in the world [around the Pacific Rim Park], and some of the biggest stumps.”

Link to original news article: https://www.theprovince.com/travel/Meet+Cheewhat+Canada+largest+tree+help+alliance+keep+giants+like+safe/5114186/story.html#ixzz1SVaaILU7

Old-growth redcedar stump in the Klanawa Valley. Vancouver Island

Parks Day Alert: Video clip of “Canada’s Largest Tree” and old-growth logging

Jul 16 2011/in Media Release

For Immediate Release

Saturday, July 15, 2011

Parks Day Alert: Video clip of “Canada’s Largest Tree” and old-growth logging by Pacific Rim National Park Reserve released today

The Ancient Forest Alliance released a new video clip on Parks Day today about the threats to the ecological integrity of Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and the surrounding old-growth forests.

See the clip “Canada’s Largest Tree – the Cheewhat Cedar” at: https://youtu.be/Xw2Im8nSOdg

The clip was posted on the organization’s website (www.ancientforestalliance.org) and Facebook profile today, which is the 100 year anniversary of the federal national parks agency Parks Canada (founded in 1911, 26 years after the first national park was created, Banff National Park in Alberta) and the 100 year anniversary of BC’s provincial parks (Strathcona Provincial Park on Vancouver Island was created in 1911).
The clip features Canada’s largest tree, a western redcedar named the Cheewhat Giant growing in a remote location near Cheewhat Lake within Pacific Rim National Park Reserve north of Port Renfrew and west of Lake Cowichan. The tree is over 6 meters (20 feet) in trunk diameter, 56 meters (182 feet) in height, and 450 cubic meters in timber volume (or 450 regular telephone poles worth of wood). Luckily the tree, discovered in 1988, is within the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, which was created in 1971.

The video clip also features new clearcuts and giant stumps of redcedar trees, some over 4 meters (14 feet) in diameter in the Klanawa Valley adjacent to Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and also near the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park (in the Nitinat Lake/Rosander Main region) logged in 2010 and 2011.

Extensive logging of the last unprotected old-growth forests is taking place adjacent to the national park in the “West Coast Trail Wilderness” of the Klanawa Valley, Nitinat Lake region, Rosander Main region, Upper Walbran Valley, Gordon River Valley, Hadikin Lake region, San Juan Valley, and a lot of other areas as the market for western redcedar rebounds after the last recession.

“Pacific Rim National Park Reserve is a very narrow, linear park just a couple kilometres wide along much of the West Coast Trail unit that is threatened by logging of adjacent unprotected ancient forests. Nearby old-growth logging threatens the park’s ecological integrity by silting up salmon streams that run into the park, diminishing the contiguous wildlife habitat, and undermining the wilderness experience for hikers who often hear the roar of chainsaws through the narrow buffer of trees along the trail,” states Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance co-founder. “However, more importantly the last unprotected ancient forests in the Upper Walbran Valley, Klanawa Valley, and Gordon River Valley where the Avatar Grove still stands are literally the grandest forests left in Canada. They must be protected, and we need a forward thinking government to do so.”

Former Juan de Fuca Member of Parliament Keith Martin proposed to include the adjacent old-growth forests of the Avatar Grove, Red Creek Fir, San Juan Spruce, Walbran-Carmanah Valleys, Klanawa Valley, the Juan de Fuca Trail and adjacent lands, and endangered ecosystems at Mary Hill and Race Rocks within an expanded Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.

“Former Member of Parliament Keith Martin had a very visionary proposal to expand Pacific Rim National Park Reserve to enhance its ecological integrity and to protect the adjacent old-growth forests on southwestern Vancouver Island. I hope that other politicians will rise to the challenge to protect old-growth forests with the vision that Keith Martin set in motion,” states TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance co-founder. “Future generations will look back at the majority of BC’s politicians today who still sanction the elimination of our last endangered old-growth forests on Vancouver Island, despite the second-growth alternative for logging, and see them as lacking vision, compassion, and a spine. We desperately need more politicians with courage and wisdom to step forward.”

Satellite photos show that about 75% of the original, productive old-growth forests on Vancouver Island have been logged, including 90% of the valley bottoms where the largest trees grow and most biodiversity is found. On southern Vancouver Island, south of Barkley Sound, about 87% of the original, productive old-growth forests have been logged.

See “before” and “after” old-growth forest maps at: https://ancientforestalliance.org/ancient-forests/before-after-old-growth-maps/

See other Ancient Forest Alliance’s Youtube Clips of Canada’s largest trees near Pacific Rim National Park Reserve at:

– World’s Largest Douglas Fir – the Red Creek Fir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfBWLVj-Xjg

– Canada’s Largest Spruce – the San Juan Spruce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lql9_hWuFLA&NR=1

– Canada’s Gnarliest Tree – Save the Avatar Grove: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_uPkAWsvVw

See spectacular photo galleries of Canada’s largest trees at:

https://ancientforestalliance.org/photos-media/

2025 Activity Report & Financials

Apr 30 2026

2025 was a milestone year for the Ancient Forest Alliance and the old-growth campaign. Despite the BC government's backsliding on many of its old-growth commitments, there was still much work to be proud of, including celebrating our 15th year working to protect ancient forests. Check out our 2025 Activity Report & Financials to see the impact YOU made on 2025, plus, find out what we have in store for 2026!

Announcements