The international news group Al Jazeera filming near Canada's Gnarliest Tree in the Avatar Grove

BC’s ancient forests draw Al Jazeera’s gaze

With Gadhafi teetering, Mubarak toppled and pretty much every Arab state having come down with a severe case of the wobbles, Al Jazeera naturally turns its attention to … Avatar Grove.

It’s true. A crew from the English-language version of the Mideast-based news network has waded into the Vancouver Island woods for a story on BC logging practices.

Which evokes a picture of Moammar, the man who put the Daffy in Gadhafi, glued to the big-screen TV and saying: “That’s the gnarliest Sitka spruce I’ve ever seen.”

Well, no, Al Jazeera English is actually available to 220 million homes in more than 100 countries around the world, which is what has local environmentalists excited.

“International audiences will be astounded to see that British Columbia still has 1,000-year-old trees with tree trunks as wide as living rooms and that tower as tall as downtown skyscrapers -and horrified to know that our government still sanctions cutting them down on a large scale,” said Ken Wu, executive director of the Victoria-based Ancient Forest Alliance, which is campaigning to end old-growth logging in areas where such trees are scarce.

Wu and Metchosin’s T.J. Watt guided the Torontobased Al Jazeera crew around the Port Renfrew area, taking in clearcuts and the stand of massive trees they have dubbed Avatar Grove. The name might be so shamelessly contrived that it makes some want to club a whooping crane to death out of spite, but it seems to have done the trick in attracting attention to the cause.

“We’re always interested in environmental stories,” said Al Jazeera producer Jet Belgraver, on the phone from Toronto. The story, which will air Saturday, aims to give global viewers “a bit of a reality check” about BC logging practices. “When they think of Canada, they think of pristine forests.”

This sort of thing makes Canadians squirm. We get our noses out of joint when international media ignore us, then do a 180 and get all shirty when they report on our dirty laundry, as was the case when the world showed up for the Olympics and discovered that Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside looked like the cast party for Shaun of the Dead.

As for the struggle for Vancouver Island’s forests, it hasn’t really garnered international attention since 1993’s War in the Woods, the massive protest against Clayoquot Sound logging. The cameras rolled when activist rockers Midnight Oil -whose big, bald lead singer, Peter Garrett, went on to become Australia’s environment minister -played a concert at the protesters’ camp that July. Environmental lawyer Robert Kennedy, Jr. (another kind of rock star) waded in two weeks later. International pressure, the threat of boycott, eventually spurred BC forestry reform, such as it was.

Americans tend not to pay much attention to us anymore, though. The Washington Post shut its Canadian bureau in 2007, following the lead of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times. Two years ago, CNN was so ignorant that when Barack Obama paid his first presidential trip to Canada, it identified the red-serge Mounties as soldiers.

Al Jazeera English bills itself as the only international network with a permanent bureau in Canada. The four-year-old 24-hour news service, based in Qatar, began broadcasting as a digital channel in Canada last May. The Toronto bureau’s staff are all Canadian, with Imtiaz Tyab, who had worked for the CBC in Vancouver, its on-camera face.

In fact, the entire network has a strong Canadian flavour, including Tony Burman, former editor in chief of CBC News.

Although influential abroad, the network is having a hard time getting a toehold in the U.S., where the Al Jazeera name conjures up images of bombhappy radical Muslim clerics, and where there appears to be widespread support for exposing the public to a diversity of perspectives, as long as they’re American.

Al Jazeera isn’t that readily accessible in Canada, either. Shaw carries it as a specialty channel in Victoria, up in the nosebleed section with the Knitting Knetwork and Lithuanian pay-per-view porn, or something like that. It’s easiest to stream it live over the Internet.

As for the old-growth logging practices at the heart of the story, Wu and Watt are encouraged that Forests Minister Pat Bell recently asked BC’s chief forester to investigate a Forest Practices Board recommendation that the province find a new way to protect ancient, giant trees.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine the government declaring Avatar Grove (even politicians have begun using the name) off-limits to logging; the Liberals need to do something to recover from the Juan de Fuca lands debacle.

But Wu says that would just be a start. “It’s not just about saving the cherry on top of the cake.”

If the government doesn’t come up with an old-growth strategy acceptable to the Ancient Forest Alliance, the group plans to target vulnerable Liberal MLAs -not a war in the woods, but a war in the swing ridings.

Maybe that would bring back the cameras, the media always being drawn by war.

A waterfall cascades through the old-growth redcedars in the endagered Avatar Grove.

Avatar Grove to be featured on Al Jazeera News Network

A Vancouver Island ecological landmark will be featured on Al Jazeera, a major Arabic and English language news network

 The Ancient Forest Alliance says Al Jazeera film crews came to the island last week, to get shots of the Avatar Grove, an area of old growth forest near Port Renfrew which has been flagged for logging

Speaking on CFAX 1070 with Dave Dickson Thursday, the Alliance’s spokesperson Ken Wu explains how the network found out about Avatar Grove

“it was their Qatar-based headquarters that noticed there was a torrent of articles coming out in Canada about the Avatar Grove. That was about 2 weeks ago, you might remember there was a flurry of articles when the minister of forests Pat Bell said ‘ok we are going to look into saving this Avatar Grove place possibly, and protecting our biggest trees’ and that, you know triggered a whole series of articles in Canada and they noticed it, so they told their crew to come and check it out and do a story as part of the international news pieces”

Wu says the piece will be aired on the network this weekend.

The Alliance is hoping to save Avatar Grove from logging. They say while some of the trees in the grove have been flagged for logging, no cutting permits have been issued yet by the Ministry of Forests

original article

Avatar Grove

Al Jazeera to report from front lines of B.C.’s old-growth logging issue

B.C.’s old-growth logging issues, which have long been the focus of North American and European media, are about to reach a far broader audience.

A film crew from the Toronto office of Al Jazeera visited southwestern Vancouver Island recently to report on old-growth logging issues for the English version of the Arabic news network.

 “This will be the biggest international news hit for the old-growth campaign in a long time,” Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Alliance said Thursday. “There is a strong international market for environmental issues, particularly one that is very charismatic.”

The Al Jazeera crew recently visited the so-called Avatar Grove, a stand of about 100 old-growth cedars and Douglas firs near Port Renfrew named after Canadian James Cameron’s blockbuster movie. They also visited nearby the San Juan Spruce — largest of its species in Canada — and clearcut stumps.

“They were blown away,” Wu said. “International audiences will be stunned to see not just trees with trunks as wide as living rooms … but that the government endorses logging of these endangered stands.”

One particularly gnarly cedar at Avatar Grove measures 11 metres in circumference near the base of its trunk, its distorted look attributed to a non-lethal fungal infection.

Forests minister Pat Bell has asked the province’s chief forester to review existing regulations for protecting trees that, because of their age, have values that make them worth preserving.

The alliance is fighting to save not just the grove, but remaining old-growth stands on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland region. “This is one of the few jurisdictions where it’s still the norm to cut down centuries-old trees.” said Wu, noting the Al Jazeera report will broadcast on Saturday.

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AFA Photographer TJ Watt relaxes in a giant redcedar the day he and a friend discovered the now endangered Avatar Grove.

Old-growth group helping push forest policy changes

The increasingly famous Avatar Grove old-growth forest has gained some political backing.

Pat Bell, minister of forests, mines and lands, announced in early February that pockets of ancient B.C. forests need more protection.

Bell’s announcement came on the heels of a similar recommendation released by the Forest Practices Board, an independent advisory group for the B.C. government.

FPB recommended the government protect a section of trees in the Gordon River drainage area north of Port Renfrew. Environmental activists from Ancient Forests Alliance named the area Avatar Grove, after the popular 2009 sci-fi movie. The report issued by the FPB also references Avatar Grove in its document.

“This is just a recommendation,” said TJ Watt, AFA cofounder and Metchosin-based photographer. “Until concrete actions are taken there is still more work to be done.”

The recommendation is based upon the 60-hectare area the AFA has been heavily promoting for more than a year. Ken Wu, AFA cofounder, said his group’s work has certainly played a part in this.

“We’ve popularized it,” Wu said. The areas discussed in the report, Avatar Grove and a nearby cut block, have been main focus of the AFA.

After receiving a complaint from an individual, the FPB recommended “certain individual, or small groups, of exceptional trees” at Avatar Grove could be more valuable if they are spared from logging. Watt introduced the complainant to the area.

In the recommendation, the FPB wants government, forest professionals and licensees to find creative ways to save these trees.

“We want supporters to flood the government (offices with letters),” Wu said. “I am encouraged by Minister Pat Bell’s statements, let’s see if he does good on them.”

While the AFA approves of the recommendation its members think it still isn’t enough. “They need to go further, we have so little of the productive old growth forest on Vancouver Island left,” Watt said.

The report stated about 25 per cent of the area is already protected and the remaining land is available for logging.

“The overall feeling I’ve got is most everyone gets it,” Watt said. “Local businesses get it, tourist associations get it, various politicians are taking stances on it.

“On Vancouver Island 75 per cent of the productive old growth forest has been logged. When so little remains you need to protect that.”

Watt was exploring the Gordon River valley about a year ago to see what old growth remained, when he found what had been dubbed Avatar Grove.

“Unfortunately we found giant tree stumps instead of giant trees,” he said.

“We just started finding big tree after big tree. It boggled my mind that it was still there. Everything had been logged behind it, beside it and on all sides. I knew it had the potential to be the Cathedral Grove of Port Renfrew.”

On a return trip Watt and Wu noticed the area had been surveyed with flagging tape and spray paint markings on the trees.

Watt speculated trees at Avatar Grove are still standing due to the attention the forest has received.

“There is a high chance that if no one had discovered it, it wouldn’t be standing right now.”

Loggers painted a sad face with its tongue sticking out making a mockery of the old-growth devastation in the background. Upper Walbran Valley

No Paradigm Shift in BC Government, But New Recognition of Public Mood for Protecting Avatar Grove and Expanding Old-Growth Protection

Ancient Forest Alliance plans public hike to Avatar Grove on Sunday, February 27

Forest activists reacted with amusement at comments made by the BC government and a logging industry representative in a Times Colonist article “BC looking for new ways to protect ancient trees” on Tuesday.

In the article the Forests Minister Pat Bell states, “BC has more old-growth today than we’ve ever had,” and that “we are not running out of old-growth on Vancouver Island…”

 

“Somehow a century of industrial logging has actually increased the amount of old-growth forests on Vancouver Island, according to the BC government. Maybe the Ancient Forest Alliance should take up logging to increase the amount of old-growth forests in BC!” joked Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) executive director. “The BC government still retains its old mindset about old forests, as they’re still into their silly spin-doctoring – clearly they haven’t experienced a paradigm shift about our old-growth forests. However, the fact is this government has always maintained such nonsense – the main difference now, the new thing here, is their acknowledgement that there is a real public mood in seeing greater protection levels for our old-growth forests, including the Avatar Grove and BC’s largest trees. Of course we welcome this acknowledgement on the need to expand old-growth forest protections.”

 

The Ancient Forest Alliance is planning another public hike to the Avatar Grove on Sunday, February 27. More details will be posted on its website www.ancientforestalliance.org next week.

 

Since the Avatar Grove was located in December of 2009 by Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner TJ Watt, the AFA has organized countless public hikes, slideshows, rallies, photography expeditions, letter-writing drives, and petition drives to get the area protected. There has been a torrent of local, provincial, and national media stories about the Avatar Grove, and support has snowballed to include the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce, Sooke Region Tourism Association, and local elected representatives at the federal, provincial, and regional levels including Liberal MP Keith Martin, NDP MLA John Horgan, and Regional Director Mike Hicks, respectively. The Avatar Grove consists of numerous monumental ancient redcedars, some 14 feet (over 4 meters) in trunk diameter, giant Douglas firs, and a few large Sitka spruce, all of which are heavily targeted by the old-growth logging industry. “Canada’s Gnarliest Tree”, a huge redcedar with a 10 foot (3 meter) wide burl, is also found in the Avatar Grove. The area was surveyed and flagged with falling boundary and road location tape by Teal-Jones by February of 2010.  See Avatar Grove photos at: https://ancientforestalliance.org/photos-media/

 

Almost 6000 people have now viewed the Ancient Forest Alliance’s new video clip (1 minute), “Canada’s Gnarliest Tree – Save the Avatar Grove” at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_uPkAWsvVw

 

“We’ll give thanks if Bell makes good to protect the Avatar Grove. Protecting our most impressive monumental trees and ancient groves is much needed, although most importantly we need to protect old-growth ecosystems on a larger scale. Saving the cherry on top while the voracious neighbour devours the rest of the cake will still deprive our children,” states Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director. “The logging industry’s appetite has devoured 90% of our valley bottom ancient forests on Vancouver Island where the largest trees grow – they’ve had far more than their share. “

 

“There is an inevitable transition to logging only second-growth forests in southern BC as the old-growth stands run out – what we’re saying is let’s make the transition now while we still have some significant old-growth stands left,  for wildlife, tourism, the climate, and future generations. I think the majority of British Columbians would agree with that,” stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and photographer.

 

In Tuesday’s Times Colonist article, Rick Jeffery, president of the Coast Forest Products Association, also spin-doctored various statistics, claiming that there are more protected areas than lands available for logging (reality check:  most park lands consist of alpine rock and ice, marginal subalpine forests, and coastal bog forests, and contain a minority fraction of productive forest lands of value for logging), that most monumental stands of ancient trees are already protected (reality check: 90% of Vancouver Island’s productive old-growth forests in the valley bottoms, where the monumental stands grow, have already been logged, and a significant amount of the remainder is unprotected), and that the threat against a stand like the Avatar Grove is an exception.

 

“The Avatar Grove is just one example of the thousands of ancient forest stands currently under threat in BC, literally hundreds of which get clearcut each year – that’s a simple, sad fact. The difference with the Avatar Grove is that it is easy to get to and grows on gentle terrain so that large numbers of people have now seen this place. Most other endangered ancient forests are remote and difficult for the average person to get to, and thus their destruction goes unseen,” states TJ Watt, AFA explorer and photographer.

 

On Vancouver Island, according to satellite photos, about 75% of the original, productive old-growth forests have been logged, including 90% of the valley bottoms where the largest trees grow. See “before” and “after” maps at:

https://ancientforestalliance.org/ancient-forests/before-after-old-growth-maps/

 

AFA photographer TJ Watt shows a print of his photo of a man on a stump in the Gordon River valley that won first place in a Outdoor Photography Canada magazine photo contest.

Metchosin photographer earns national recognition

A stunning photograph by Metchosin photographer TJ Watt has gained national recognition.

Watt earned first place in Outdoor Photography Canada magazine’s “human impact on the environment” photo contest.

The image is of a lone man standing on the stump of an ancient tree in the middle of a clear cut in Gordon River valley, near Port Renfrew.

“This shot I feel summed up the factual aspects of what’s happening and the emotional aspects,” Watt said. “It summarizes the whole impact in the photo.”

While shooting in the Gordon River valley, Watt said he’d come across stumps with circumferences of nearly 50 feet.

The photo was taken about a year ago after Watt discovered this area.

He uses his photography to spread word on environmental activism. Watt is a founding member of the Ancient Forest Alliance, a group that has highlighted the so-called Avatar Grove trees near Port Renfew.

“I think the main thing is these places are actually so close to us, but seem so remote. They are finally getting out to the world through photos,” Watt said.

Watt’s photo may be on the cover of an upcoming environmental documentary and possibly even in a museum exhibit. Both projects are still in the works, Watt said.

The same photo also earned Watt first place in the Metchosin Day photography contest.

“It’s also been in many different newspapers,” Watt said. “It’s been travelling around and I get many requests by e-mail for it. It’s not just about pretty pictures now. There is a higher cause to my photos.”

[Original article no longer available]

A waterfall cascades through the old-growth redcedars in the endagered Avatar Grove.

Grove Saved?

Speaking of those pesky environmental issues, Port Renfrew’s beloved Avatar Grove may have made some exciting headway with the BC Liberals this past week, when Minister of Forests, Mines and Lands Pat Bell announced that he is considering protecting the endangered area.

“Certainly we have been hearing the message . . . that we should be considering some tools, perhaps new tools that we could use when particularly unique trees are identified. They may be individual trees or small areas like the Avatar Grove that provide incremental value over and above the timber resource value,” Bell told media.

Ken Wu, long-time environmental and grove advocate with the Ancient Forest Alliance, says that credit must be given to Bell’s advancements, but that B.C. still has a long way to go yet.

“There’s the real possibility of policy change right now with B.C. being leaderless,” Wu says. “Bell is saying he may open some doors, but we’re going to have to wait and see.”

Wu says the province is still in need of protection on three levels: individual trees, groups (like Avatar Grove) and large forested areas.

“We did bust our asses on this campaign, but the grove speaks for itself . . . when you get business affiliates — like the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce — calling for its support, that’s when you see the BC Liberals listen.”

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The highly endangered Spotted owl. An estimated 5 individuals are thought to exist still in the wild.

B.C. needs endangered species legislation

As a conservation biologist, I am charged with the responsibility of maintaining the genetic tapestry of life on our planet. And as a science communicator my job is to explain why nature and a healthy environment are crucial to the well-being of corporations, governments and children.

Super, natural British Columbia is awesome, with more than 4,373 known forms of life. At more than double the size of the state of California, B.C. is breathtaking. About threequarters of the land lies above 1,000 metres in elevation and more than 18 per cent is rock, ice or tundra. It’s home to the highest diversity of life in Canada: 10 ecological zones with unique natural communities including coastal and interior rainforests, massive spruce forests, exquisite montane forests, endangered coastal prairie and interior grasslands, rare Garry oak and evergreen Pacific madrones, and incredible freshwater ecosystems which connect and sustain life in the Pacific Ocean.

Currently, B.C. is without endangered species legislation and 1,900 species are at risk from local extinction or extirpation. This is unacceptable for a number of reasons.

Over the past quarter of a century biologists have learned a lot about the web of life with rainforests, grasslands and all B.C. ecosystems.

It turns out that old-growth coastal rainforests are incredibly rich ecosystems that act as massive carbon warehouses offering all life a buffer against rising greenhouse gases and global warming. The caveat, however, is that these rainforests need to remain intact and undisturbed by human development. Moreover, their very health and well-being depend upon the presence of myriad critters, which in turn require habitat provided by these ancient temperate rainforests.

For instance, in order for Sitka spruce, Canada’s tallest trees, to grow in excess of 95 metres -the equivalent of a 31-storey skyscraper -they require a microscopic soil fungus to help their roots extract nutrients and vitamins from the nutrient-poor rainforest soils and protect them from summertime droughts. In return, the Sitka roots offer the fungus food in the form of carbohydrates – a remarkable symbiotic or give-andtake relationship.

In order for the fungus to spread in the ancient rainforest it relies upon the nocturnal flying squirrel to eat its mushroom or fruit bodies in the late summer and poop the spores or seeds in perfect self-contained fertilizer packs throughout the forest. Flying squirrels are the main prey for endangered spotted owls. A breeding pair of spotted owls requires 3,400 hectares of old-growth rainforest in order to survive.

Some of my colleagues have spent their lifetimes observing and understanding how big trees in oldgrowth rainforests get so tall. It’s not just the microscopic relationships in soils; rather, it’s a combination of factors, including the presence of canopy lichens, half fungus and half algae, which require forests to be at least 150 to 200 years old before they can begin to farm atmospheric nitrogen into nitrates -a form Sitka spruce can use because these ancient rainforests severely lack nitrogen.

Old-growth rainforests are still being felled in B.C. In fact, thousand-yearold western red cedars are slated to be logged in the inland rainforest’s Robson Valley. It’s the only valley left in the entire Rocky Mountains where grizzly bears still feed on wild oceangoing salmon.

Habitat destruction is the leading cause of species extinction on our planet.

Global warming is also exerting additional pressures on B.C. forests.

Since 1998, mountain pine beetle outbreaks have killed an estimated 700 million cubic metres of pine, mostly lodgepole, in B.C. -in excess of half of the province’s commercial pine. Warmer winters, a long fire-suppression policy and stressed pines have all collided in the perfect feeding frenzy.

The bark beetle infestations will continue until they run out of lodgepole in the next couple of years. In the meantime, these forests -which once absorbed rising levels of CO2 -have now become a source of CO2 as they begin to decompose. Over the next 10 years, the beetle-killed forests will emit 250 million tonnes of CO2 or the equivalent of five years of car and light truck emissions in Canada.

B.C.’s Crown merchantable forest has shrunk, dramatically. The worldwide recession has exacerbated the weak demand for B.C. timber and thousands of B.C. forest workers have lost their jobs.

It’s time to protect the remaining old-growth forests, animals and plants (some with potent medicinal value) and all ecosystems with science-based endangered species legislation. Accelerating the harvest of ancient coastal and inland rainforests will impoverish our children by dismantling the tapestry of life and hasten the loss of species diversity throughout the province. Moreover, tourism is poised to take over as the leading revenue-bearing industry in B.C. Eco-tourism alone is set to add more than 13,000 new jobs by 2015.

British Columbians are very fortunate because each voter has a stake in the Crown lands, which make up 95 per cent of the province, including the ancient rainforests. The value of all ecosystems and their interconnected webs of life are priceless in the 21st century and they require endangered species legislation to protect them -now!

Dr. Reese Halter is a conservation biologist at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks and co-author with Dr. Nancy Turner of Native Trees of British Columbia

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Hikers gather around the largest alien shaped cedar in the Lower Avatar Grove

BC Government considers protecting "Avatar Grove"

The BC government announced Friday that it is looking into the possibility of protecting the old growth trees in the “Avatar Grove” near Port Renfrew.

Forests minister Pat Bell said in an interview Friday that he has asked the province’s chief forester to review existing regulations for protecting trees that, because of their age, have values that make them worth preserving. [Original article no longer available]

“Certainly we have been hearing the message for some time from different organizations that we should be considering some tools, perhaps new tools that we could use when particularly unique trees are identified. They may be individual tees or small areas like the Avatar Grove that provide incremental value over and above the timber resource value,” Bell said.

The Avatar Grove is an easily accessible stand of red cedars and Douglas firs on southern Vancouver Island, a 15-minute drive from Port Renfrew.

*The Vancouver Sun posted this short article along with 19 of the AFA’s big tree, big stump, and Avatar Grove shots online: Click here to see the original article and photo gallery

AFA Campaign Director Ken Wu stands beside one of the Avatar Grove's largest redcedars.

Times Colonist – Thumbs Up To the Forest Practices Board

Thumbs Up: To the Forest Practices Board, for the first step toward better protection for ancient, giant trees in B.C.’s forests. Sparked by concerns about logging of massive trees near Port Renfrew, the board called for voluntary curbs on logging of trees that “can inspire awe and reverence, a sense of spirituality and connection to past events.” Voluntary efforts by forest companies answerable to shareholders aren’t enough, but the report is a start toward real protection for trees with historic significance every bit as real as ancient ruins.
Times Colonist article no longer available.