The unprotected Mossy Maple Grove, Canada’s mossiest rainforest, is a stand of enormous old-growth Bigleaf maple trees – some as much as 2 meters (7 feet) wide in trunk diameter – completely draped in hanging gardens of mosses and ferns found just south of Cowichan Lake on Vancouver Island. Unlike other spotlighted old-growth forests in BC that have all been “coniferous” or needle-leaf trees (Douglas firs, Sitka spruce, western redcedars, etc.), this is an old-growth “deciduous” or broad-leaf rainforest.

This area has also been nicknamed “Fangorn Forest” after the forest in The Lord of the Rings.

Photography by TJ Watt.

Join us to advocate protection for BC’s endangered old-growth forests and forestry jobs by signing our petition.