In British Columbia we have access to some of the most beautiful old growth temperate rainforest in the world at our doorstep. Due to irresponsible corporate logging practices, fewer than 10% of this irreplaceable forest remains, and every year the number decreases as logging companies clandestinely cut down 1000+ year old trees in remote valleys and estuaries beyond the public’s eye.

Logging of temperate rainforest not only harms the future generations of humans who will never get to appreciate the splendor of a pristine old growth rainforest, it also contributes to a wholesale destruction of the ecosystem. Clear-cutting has major effects on the microclimate, water, soil, nutrient cycling, and the diversity and composition of plant and animal species. In fact, many scientists who have studied the dramatic demise of wild salmon stocks in British Columbia point directly to clear-cut logging and subsequent destruction of fish spawning habitat as the single most damaging factor. Make no mistake, these old growth forests are NOT renewable resources; they are ancient gardens tended to by first peoples and fertilized by dying salmon for centuries prior to the arrival of Europeans.

This set of photos captures some of the precious old growth forest environments of British Columbia's raincoast, from Vancouver Island to the Great Bear Rainforest.