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Text by Joan Maloof [launch slideshow]
Are photographs useful in the struggle to preserve beauty and diversity in the natural world? Consider the story of Ken Wu. When Wu was a young boy in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, his parents bought him The Illustrated Natural History of Canada book series. In the Pacific Coast edition Wu found a photograph that fascinated him. It was an old black-and-white photo from the Public Archives of Canada showing four couples, in the old-fashioned dress of that era, waltzing on a tree stump. Wu had never seen a tree as large as the one that must have been taken from that stump. He had no idea that such trees even grew in Canada. He read in the text that the Pacific Coast once contained many trees that huge, but that most of them had already been removed by loggers. The only places where one could still see the gigantic trees were in parks or remote valleys that the loggers hadn’t yet reached. Wu wanted to see those trees with his own eyes; he started pestering his parents to take him to British Columbia to see the old-growth forests. His parents obliged, and he was not disappointed. In fact, he was entranced. When the time came for Wu to pick a college, he chose the University of British Columbia so he could be close to the ancient forests. While in college he learned that the trees he loved so much were still in danger of becoming stumps. The logging of the giant trees had been ongoing—at least since before the black-and-white photograph was taken. Wu knew that he must do something to work to save the trees that remained. He joined the campus Environmental Youth Alliance, and was involved in the first major logging protest on Vancouver Island. He was only 17 at the time. Five-hundred people showed up, even though they had to drive for hours on a bone-jarring dirt logging road to get to the site of the protest. Protestors weren’t able to save all the trees but they saved some of them. Wu has been working to save the rest ever since. He has been at it now for 17 years. He graduated from UBC and joined the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, an organization whose main focus is saving the remaining old-growth forests. Now the logging protests draw thousands of people and Wu is the one at the microphone. The day I met him led a group of writers and environmental literature critics on a tour of the old growth. He encouraged us to spread the word about these beautiful ancient forests and about the ongoing logging in British Columbia. Because it was photography that sparked Wu’s passion for the forest, it seems fitting to answer his request with photographs. These photos were taken on June 7, 2009, in an old-growth forest in the Upper Walbran Valley of Vancouver Island. This area is public land (“crown land” in Canadian parlance) but it is not protected from logging, and it is under immediate threat of being logged. We welcome you to join the movement to save this forest, and all other remaining old-growth forests. We’d rather dance under the shade of the canopy than on top of the stumps.
View online slideshow of 12 old-growth forest photographs by Rick Maloof >>
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