Forestry Union President Calls on NDP to Protect BC Forests & Forestry Jobs

Check out this opinion piece by Arnie Bercov, the president of the Public and Private Workers of Canada (PPWC), which represents thousands of forestry workers across BC. The PPWC has joined  in calling on the NDP government to start implementing major policy shifts to end raw log exports, incentivize the development of new second-growth mills and value-added facilities, protect old-growth forests, and support First Nations' land use planning and sustainable economic development

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Opinion: Status quo a non-starter in B.C.’s forest industry

Vancouver Sun Op-Ed by Arnie Bercov: Doug Donaldson understands better than most how neglected B.C.’s forests are, and how that neglect is mirrored in troubling job losses and missed employment opportunities…
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Capturing the art of nature and change

Vancouver Island’s old-growth forests have inspired acclaimed digital artist Kelly Richardson to move to Victoria, to be closer to the inspiration the ancient stands of trees provide.

In particular, she has had her eye on Port Renfrew — dubbed the “tall-tree capital” of Canada — and is featuring it in a digital-art creation that will be shown at Imax theatres as part of a film series. The series will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Imax’s invention.

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Tall trees draw renowned artist to Saanich

Check out this Saanich News article about artist and UVic visual arts associate professor, Kelly Richardson. Known for hyper-real digital films, Richardson is one of five artists commissioned to produce a large-format digital film short for the 50th anniversary of the invention of IMAX.  Her work will feature and bring attention to the plight of Vancouver Island's endangered old-growth forests. 

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Kelly Richardson in Avatar Grove

New Visual Arts Professor Creates Avatar Grove Film Project

Internationally acclaimed artist Kelly Richardson, a new professor in UVic’s Department of Visual Arts, is bringing the old-growth forests near Port Renfrew sharply into focus with a new digital art project.

Created with the participation of the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA), Richardson's large-format film will be shot in July at Port Renfrew’s Avatar Grove (a popular nickname for its Nuu-cha-nulth Pacheedaht name of T'l'oqwxwat) by Christian Kroitor, the grandson of IMAX inventor Roman Kroitor, and released on IMAX screens across Canada next year.

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Port Renfrew’s Avatar Grove featured in national IMAX series

Sooke News Mirror: A Victoria artist, recognized internationally, will showcase Port Renfrew’s old growth forests in a new IMAX project. Kelly Richardson, who visited Avatar Grove two years ago…
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WATCH: Victoria artist to showcase Port Renfrew old growth forests in IMAX project

WATCH: Vancouver Island’s endangered old-growth forests in Port Renfrew have captured the attention of an internationally acclaimed artist. The giant ancient trees will be featured in an upcoming digital art installation that will be projected on IMAX screens across the country.

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AFA Executive Director Ken Wu stands alongside a row of Sitka spruce and western hemlock trees growing in a line out of a nurse log in the unprotected FernGully Grove near Port Renfrew.

Forest advocacy group discovers grove of giant Sitka spruce trees on Vancouver Island

Here is a recent Globe and Mail article about the ancient Sitka spruce grove that we located recently near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory. The grove includes a huge, 11 foot wide Sitka spruce that is wider than the 10th widest spruce (the Carmanah Giant) listed on the BC Big Tree Registry.

TimberWest Corp. is quoted, saying they have classified the area for conservation purposes for now within their private lands inventory. This should make it easier at some point for the land to be purchased - ideally by the province - as an ecological reserve or conservancy, as public protection is a far greater guarantee for the area's future security than a voluntary designation under the private ownership of a timber corporation.

Ancient Forest Alliance campaigners found the grove earlier this month and identified it as a significant old-growth site of high conservation value. People would have traversed, lived in, and hunted throughout the area for thousands of years, and early loggers had cut in the vicinity all around the grove a century earlier, but luckily left several relatively limited clusters of giant ancient spruce here.

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Sun shines through the moss and ferns in the unprotected FernGully Grove near Port Renfrew.

Towering near-record Sitka spruce located near Port Renfrew

Check out this new article in CHEK News about FernGully Grove: Port Renfrew is billed as Canada’s Tall Tree Capital, and the latest find is helping to enforce the nickname. The Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) says they located an 11-foot diameter Sitka spruce tree that is the tenth widest Sitka spruce in Canada, according to the BC Big Tree Registry. AFA says they found the massive tree in one of the last unprotected stands of old-growth Sitka spruce groves on Vancouver Island, nicknamed FernGully Grove, near Port Renfrew.

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From left: Ancient Forest Alliance volunteer Nathaniel Glickman

Massive near-record Sitka spruce tree found on Vancouver Island

Here's a Vancouver Sun article about FernGully Grove - a spectacular grove of giant spruce that we located near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory last week - saying: A forest advocacy group says it has discovered an unprotected old-growth forest that is home to a near-record sized Sitka spruce tree on Vancouver Island. The Ancient Forest Alliance says the 3.3-metre wide tree was found on lands owned by TimberWest Corporation, near the town of Port Renfrew, also known as Canada’s tall tree capital. AFA executive director Ken Wu says the area, which they have nicknamed FernGully Grove, is also home to dozens of one to two metre wide trees, giant sword ferns, and is the habitat for elk, deer, wolves, cougars and black bears. He says the grove “needs to be bought and protected by the province.” 

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