Posts

Oct 23 2016

Chinese-Language Ancient Forest Tours – Training for Educators Begins in Stanley Park

Today the Ancient Forest Alliance (www.AncientForestAlliance.org), the Hua Foundation (www.HuaFoundation.org) and the Stanley Park Ecology Society (www.StanleyParkEcology.ca) launched a new educational program that will eventually target the half a million Chinese-speakers in the Lower Mainland about the ecology and conservation of BC's old-growth forests. The organizations held their first "training for educational tour guides", volunteers who are interested in potentially leading old-growth nature walks in Mandarin or Cantonese, in Stanley Park. The Ancient Forest Alliance's Ken Wu and the Hua Foundation's Kevin Huang guided the dozen volunteers along some of the most spectacular old-growth trails in the park, the Tatlow and Lovers Trails where 14 feet wide, 800 year old redcedars still stand, and explained in English about the plants, animals, ecology, and related conservation issues regarding old-growth forests in British Columbia. The specialized terminology will subsequently be translated by skilled volunteers into Chinese for the participants to study. As there are half a million people in the Lower Mainland who identify their mother tongue as Chinese, this program aims to help raise the awareness and level of engagement of a major segment of BC's population on the ecology and conservation needs of old-growth forests. At a future date to be announced, once there is a trained core of nature guides, there will be public tours in Mandarin and Cantonese in the old-growth forests of Stanley Park and potentially in the Walbran Valley, Avatar Grove, Eden Grove, and Echo Lake Ancient forests. If you can speak Mandarin or Cantonese and would like to participate in this program, please contact Ken Wu at info@ancientforestalliance.org

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Sep 18 2016

Port Renfrew: Walking among ancient giants

Check it out! New Zealand's largest newspaper has an article about the Ancient Forest Alliance, the importance of old-growth forests for the tourism economy of Port Renfrew, and the campaigns to protect old-growth forests including the Central Walbran Valley.

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Aug 5 2016

Rare cougar sighting in endangered forest on Vancouver Island

CTV has run the AFA photographer TJ Watt's still photo of the large cougar and also his video of the smaller cougar in the endangered Upper Walbran Valley: A conservation photographer has captured a rare photo and video of cougars in the Walbran Valley. According to a B.C. organization that works to protect endangered forests, cougars on the island tend to avoid clear cut areas. The Ancient Forest Alliance photographer documented the two cougars, likely a mother with her juvenile offspring, from his car. “I’ve spent over a decade exploring the old-growth forests of Vancouver Island several times a week, and I grew up here, but I never saw a cougar until this past weekend,” TJ Watt said. Watt said seeing the carnivores was a “dream come true.”

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Aug 4 2016

Rare sighting of mother cougar and juvenile on Vancouver Island as activists push for forest conservation

Metro News article on the recent cougar sighting and the need to save the Walbran Valley's old-growth forests!!

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A rare photo of a cougar captured in the endangered Walbran Valley through the front window of AFA photographer TJ Watt's car.
Aug 4 2016

Rare cougar sighting – Mother and juvenile filmed and photographed in the Walbran Valley’s endangered old-growth forest

This past weekend in the Walbran Valley’s endangered old-growth forest, conservation photographer TJ Watt of the Ancient Forest Alliance captured a photograph and video of a rare cougar encounter – two cougars in fact, a large and smaller one, likely a mother with her juvenile offspring. In the brief encounter, the large adult cougar casually bounded across the road, pausing in one instant long enough for Watt to get a somewhat blurry photo through his front window, while the juvenile meandered for about 20 seconds along the road, allowing Watt to capture several seconds of shaky video.

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May 27 2016

Save the Walbran Tour Victoria

Have fun while supporting the protection of the endangered Walbran Valley this Friday, May 27th at the White Eagle Hall in James Bay as part of the Save the Walbran Tour! There will be great local musicians as well as information booths to learn more about how you can help out! Tickets $20 at Lyle's Place. The tour is being hosted by local organizers in conjunction with several non-profits and community initiatives.  For more info see:. https://www.facebook.com/events/1102443283130908/

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Ancient Forest Alliance
May 19 2016

The WestShore Chamber of Commerce Supports Port Renfrew’s Call for the Protection of the Central Walbran Valley’s Old-Growth Forest

Conservationists are delighted that the WestShore Chamber of Commerce, representing almost 400 businesses in the western suburbs of Victoria has issued a letter in support of the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce’s request to the province of British Columbia that it protect the Central Walbran Valley from old-growth logging.

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May 12 2016

‘Tree Huggers’ Documentary

Here's a new documentary by Capilano College film student Jordie Yeager, with the help of her fellow students, on the battle for Vancouver Island's old-growth forests, with a focus on the endangered Central Walbran Valley! See here: https://vimeo.com/164476946

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May 12 2016

WestShore Chamber of Commerce joins call for protection of Central Walbran Valley

Great News! The WestShore Chamber of Commerce representing almost 400 businesses in the western communites of Victoria in Langford, Colwood, Metchosin, View Royal, and Highlands, has joined the Port Renfrew and Sooke Chambers of Commerce calling on the provincial government to protect the old-growth forests of the endangered Central Walbran Valley for tourism. See their letter here: https://westshore.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Signed-statement-re-Walbran-Valley.pdf

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Apr 1 2016

Vancouver Island’s old-growth forest an ‘ecological emergency’: Sierra Club

Here's a good article by Justine Hunter of the Globe and Mail, with a photo of the Walbran Valley by the AFA's TJ Watt. The article features Jens Wieting of the Sierra Club of BC and Dr. Richard Hebda: Just one-tenth of Vancouver Island’s most productive old-growth rainforest with the tallest trees remains unlogged, he said, and some of that is currently approved for logging. The B.C. government states that on Vancouver Island, 46 percent of the forest on Crown land is still covered by old-growth forest, but Mr. Wieting said that figure is inflated because the province includes less productive ecosystems such as bogs or sparsely treed high elevations. What remains, he said, is a patchwork of forests that are too small to ensure biodiversity. “For Vancouver Island and British Columbia’s south coast, we believe it is urgent to develop a new conservation plan to safeguard the remaining intact areas and to restore older second growth so that we can have some connectivity,” he said in an interview.

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