The move to protect the grove has the support of the local chamber of commerce and the logging company that has the cutting rights to the area, but Wu says without park status, there is no guarantee the grove will not be logged in the future.
The popularity of Avatar Grove, as it was named in a brilliant branding move, has convinced the British Columbia government to protect the area — and it may yet lead to a rethinking of how the province manages its oldest forests.
The money will go to two conservation projects — to help the Ancient Forest Alliance protect B.C.'s old growth forests, and help the Land Conservancy buy private lands in the Clearwater Valley to expand Wells Gray Provincial park.
National Geographic explorer Wade Davis, who lives in the Stikine Valley in northern B.C., has made a $3,000 bid. And Andy MacKinnon, a noted author who works as a forest ecologist for the B.C. government, has offered $3,200.
Normally, the person who makes the discovery gets the right to name a newly discovered species but Goward decided to auction off that right to raise funds for the Ancient Forest Alliance and The Land Conservancy of British Columbia.
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.
To celebrate Parks Day this past week, the AFA captured a YouTube video of Canada’s largest tree, a western red cedar named the Cheewhat Giant, growing in a remote location near Cheewhat Lake, north of Port Renfrew and west of Lake Cowichan. The tree remains the country’s biggest with a trunk diametre over six metres (20 feet).
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.
"We used to depend on logging to sustain Port Renfrew. Now the tables have turned and we're looking at the tall trees as our future," said Betsworth as the two groups cemented their partnership Thursday with the opening of a new tourist information centre, where visitors can pick up a map of the area's massive old-growth trees.
The Ancient Forest Alliance along with the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce launched the new Tourist Information Centre today which will serve to funnel thousands of visitors into the town's surrounding old-growth forests, raise awareness of the need to protect them, and help create a vibrant eco-tourism based economy.
Donate
Send a Message
