Entries by TJ Watt

Tall Tree Music Festival in Port Renfrew, Friday June 25 – Sunday June 27

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This weekend festival in Port Renfrew is being hosted by various local businesses, including the Bigfish Lodge, Wild Coast Cottages, Sitka Surfboards, and Radio Contact Productions, in support of the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA). The festival will feature bands and DJs from across Canada playing in a coastal venue with views over the West Coast Trail and the Port San Juan. Proceeds from the ticket sales will be donated to the AFA. For more information, please visit https://www.radiocontact.ca/

Hunting the ancient giants

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They don’t have much in the way of money, equipment or people, but Ken Wu says big tree hunting is drawing critical attention to the plight of old growth forests.

Reinventing Renfrew

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When members of the Ancient Forest Alliance asked Port Renfrew restaurant owner Jessica Hicks to host a public meeting about a stand of old growth trees dubbed Avatar Grove, Hicks thought she might use the event as a fundraiser for the fledgeling environmental group. Then, reflecting on her Coastal Kitchen Cafe’s place in the community and the smouldering tension between environmentalists and B.C.’s logging towns, Hicks decided a simple information session might ruffle fewer feathers.

Discover Sooke Blog – Avatar Grove in Port Renfrew

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From the Discover Sooke tourism website: "Over the long weekend, Mrs. Discover Sooke and I, made the trek west from Sooke to Port Renfrew to visit the much talked about piece of land with a few remaining first growth forest trees standing on it. This piece of land has been dubbed “Avatar Grove”, after the movie, for its large and gnarly trees."

Ancient Forest Alliance Avatar Grove Trip March 2010

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On March 28th 2010, the Ancient Forest Alliance lead its first public hike to help save the Avatar Grove and to raise awareness about Vancouver Island’s rapidly vanishing old-growth ecosystems. 80 people made the trip in the wet weather to see the spectacular forest. Filmed and edited by Nic Vandergugten.

Peace in the forest an elusive goal in B.C.

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Across northern Canada, environmentalists are high-fiving one another over Tuesday’s landmark declaration of peace in the woods. No more logging in an Italy-sized swath of boreal forest stretching from coast to coast. The war is over. Hooray.

Meanwhile, Wu watches Vancouver Island’s old growth disappear like Gordon Campbell during the HST debate.

Old-Growth Forest Slideshow Comes to Saltspring Island on Thursday, May 27

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An informative and spectacular slideshow presentation of the largest trees in Canada including the Red Creek Fir, San Juan Spruce, Cheewhat Cedar and the newly-discovered Avatar Grove, and the politics and ecology of BC’s old-growth forests and forestry jobs, will be presented on Thursday, May 27 (7:00-8:30 pm, Central Hall on Fulford-Ganges Rd., by donation) by Ken Wu and TJ Watt of the newly formed Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA).