Recent News

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.

“We’re lucky to have BC’s Rock Star botanists, Wade Davis and Andy MacKinnon, support this ground-breaking conservation fundraiser,” stated Ken Wu, co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance. “Wade has a long history as a great conservationist and ethnobotanist, working for decades to protect BC’s wilderness as well as tropical ecosystems and cultures. Andy co-authored ‘Plants of Coastal BC’, which many think of as the ‘Bible of BC Botany’. He is also the foremost authority on old-growth forest ecology in this province.”

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.