A recent shakeup in Victoria’s activist community may signify a new chapter in our long history of environmental action. The longtime coordinator for the Victoria branch of BC’s Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WCWC), Ken Wu, has recently left that organization to start the fledgling Ancient Forest Alliance with co-founder TJ Watt. At recent info session […]
A March gale hissed through the treetops, spinning sudden flurries of an early spring snow into the canopy 10 storeys above our heads.
The wind sounded like surf on a distant beach but down on the mossy forest floor of what the province’s forestry maps officially designate as DL33, the world was as still as a cemetery.
Its storytelling may have left the critics – and the Academy – cold. But there's no denying James Cameron's digital extravaganza Avatar has inspired tree-huggers the world round, rooted as it is on themes of conserving ancient ecosystems in all their majesty.
What’s 12 feet tall and blue all over?
If you’ve seen the movie Avatar — and who hasn’t? — you’ll know the answer to that question is the Na’vi, the incredibly cool, nearly naked aliens with cornrows and braids who live on the incredibly cool, beautiful planet known as Pandora, all threatened by the techno-military-industrial (and little) bad guys from Earth, who lust for a metaphorical mineral called “unobtanium.”
That’s us, folks.
A patch of the Tahsish River Valley on western Vancouver Island is the new poster child for the ecological impact of old-growth logging — this time on limestone karst, perhaps the world’s most fragile landscape.
The Cowichan Valley Regional District will write to provincial Forests Minister Pat Bell and TimberWest, asking that any timber harvesting within the vicinity of the Koksilah Ancient Forest and the upper Koksilah River corridor be held in abeyance while consideration be given to other potential interests in these lands.
Ken Wu knows how to get attention for ancient forests.
When we met at the Bread Garden Café on Broadway in Vancouver just after the news broke a few weeks ago that he and several other tree-hugging stalwarts from Vancouver Island had splintered from the Western Canada Wilderness Committee to form the Ancient Forest Alliance, the former Victoria campaign director for WCWC mentioned how much he enjoyed the movie Avatar.
Flagging tape in the immediate vicinity of the world’s largest Douglas fir does not mean the area will be logged in the near future, according to forest company TimberWest.
The marked cutblock, less than 100 metres from the Red Creek Fir, was found by members of the Ancient Forest Alliance who say that if surrounding trees are cut, the 74-metre tall tree will be in danger of blow-down.
The provincial government should not let the mostly undisturbed grove in the Gordon River Valley, nicknamed Avatar Grove, be logged. It is a gem of an ecosystem and with so little of our old-growth forests left, it is not something we can afford to lose. With its proximity to Port Renfrew, it will be very beneficial for bringing in tourists, which will support local economies.
A new proposed logging cutblock near the world's largest Douglas fir tree, the Red Creek Fir, has been identified as that of TimberWest, a BC-based logging company. The Red Creek Fir, located 15 kilometers east of Port Renfrew, is recognized as the largest Douglas Fir Tree on Earth, with enough wood to make 349 telephone poles (ie. 349 cubic meters in total timber volume – see https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hre/bigtrees/docs/BigTreeRegistry.pdf). It is 73.8 meters in height and has a trunk 4.2 meters wide (Diameter-at-Breast-Height or DBH).
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