Global count estimates #Earth has 73,000 #tree #species – 14% more than reported | Trees and #forests | The Guardian
#Science #Biology #Botany #Dendrology #Biodiversity #Deforestation #Conservation #Wildlife
#forests
Before-and-After Photos Reveal the Destruction of Ancient Forests
Canadian conservation photographer TJ Watt has been using his camera to protect endangered old-growth trees from logging. His powerful before-and-after photos aim to show the devastation of ancient forests that is left in the wake of clearcut logging.
Watt, who is based in Victoria, British Columbia, works as a photographer and campaigner for the Ancient Forest Alliance, a non-profit organization he co-founded back in 2010.
"We work to protect endangered old-growth forests from logging in BC and as an alternative, push for the transition to a more sustainable, value-added second-growth forest industry," Watt tells PetaPixel. "I have combined my passion for preserving forests with my photography profession and spend much of my time studying satellite maps, driving backroads, and bushwhacking through remote forests in search of big trees and stumps to photograph and share with the world at large."
The Practice of Clearcut Logging
Clearcut logging, also known as clearcutting and clearfelling, is when most or all of the trees in a whole section of a forest are cut down. Advocates argue that the practice is beneficial for forest ecosystems, safer for humans, and economical for forestry and logging. Critics like Watt, however, decry the loss of beautiful landscapes, natural habitats, and forests that help prevent climate change.
"Clearcutting, or ‘clearing’, is the most popular and economically profitable method of logging," writes the Global Environmental Governance Project. "The loss of forest cover that accompanies clearcutting leads to habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, species extinction, soil erosion, flooding, nutrient loss, elimination of indigenous tribes, disruption of weather patterns, and increased climate change."
Before-and-After Photos of Old-Growth Tree Logging
Watt began his photo project that documents the loss of old trees after personally seeing the loss of ancient forests for over a decade.
"Over the past 10-15 years, I’ve sadly witnessed the destruction of many incredible and irreplaceable old-growth forests, forests that rival almost any other on Earth in terms of sheer beauty and grandeur, often with trees upwards of 500-1000 years old," the photographer says. "It’s nearly impossible to translate into words what the loss of an ancient ecosystem looks like after clearcut logging. It’s total annihilation."
To show the world what is lost when these forests get taken down, Watt decided to shoot before-and-after photos to show the contrast side-by-side.
Once the idea for the project had been born, Watt needed to decide where to shoot the photos.
"One day while I was out visiting a spectacular forest I was familiar with in the Caycuse Valley on southwestern Vancouver Island in Ditidaht territory, sadly I discovered logging had already begun," Watt says. "On the edge of the cutblock stood a giant cedar that I knew would fall the next morning, and unless I captured photographs of it, I would be the last person to see this tree standing, other than the fallers.
"That became the first photo in the series."
After shooting his first photo, Watt hiked through the forest, capturing more portraits of many of the giant trees before they fell.
Shooting the Before-and-After Photos
One of the keys to shooting this project was carefully recording each of the "before" locations so that Watt could revisit the stumps "after" logging had occurred.
"I began by recording my route on a GPS and tagging the photo locations as I went along, to later retrace my steps," the photographer says. "With my Canon 5D Mark IV on a tripod, I would walk into the scene and use the Canon app on my phone to view and shoot the image remotely with a two-second delay. Then I would measure the distance from the camera to the tree, record the lens and focal length used, and take a few reference photos of how the tripod was set up.
"To recreate the images, I found my way back to each spot as best I could, (hard to do with all the logging debris), and referred to the ‘before’ photos saved on my phone to reframe the ‘after’ shots. It was a haunting experience that sits with me to this day."
Photography as a Tool for Forest Conservation
Watt says his aim with his photo series is to turn the world's eyes on what is happening to old-growth forests, especially since most people will never stand among the trees to witness their beauty firsthand.
"My goal is to make people stop and feel something; to expose the continued destruction of highly endangered ancient forests in BC to as wide of an audience as possible, and to ultimately bring about change that will protect them," Watt says. "Old-growth logging often takes place in very remote and difficult to access regions, making conservation photography a powerful tool to help build broad-based awareness of the threats they still face."
"Right now we are at a critical point in history in the campaign to save ancient forests in [British Columbia]," Watt says. "The government has now accepted -- in principle -- recommendations from an independent science panel to temporarily defer logging of millions of hectares of the best old-growth across the province, pending approval from First Nations. This is in response to years of public pressure, fueled in large part by viral images we have shared of giant trees and giant stumps.
"Permanent protection is ultimately necessary because, under BC’s current system of forestry where trees are re-logged on average every 50-60 years, old-growth forests are a non-renewable resource. Tree plantations do not adequately replicate the complex and diverse ecosystems that they’re replacing, so we have just one chance to keep ancient forests standing for the benefit of the climate, tourism, wild salmon, endangered species, and many First Nations cultures."
"Though it’s too late to save the trees in these photos, I hope these images motivate people to get involved and advocate for the protection of the forests that are still standing," Watt says.
You can find more of Watt's work on his website and Instagram. You can also find out more about the Ancient Forest Alliance through the organization's website and Instagram.
Image credits: All photographs by TJ Watt.
#culture #educational #spotlight #beforeandafter #conservation #environmental #forests #logging #oldgrowth #sidebyside #tjwatt #trees
● NEWS ● #CounterPunch #Wildlife #Nature ☞ #Rivers are Protected When We Protect Our #Forests https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/22/rivers-are-protected-when-we-protect-our-forests/
Finding the Mother Tree
https://bioneers.org/finding-the-mother-tree-ze0z2105/
In nature, trees are linked to one another by a single tree that acts as a central hub. Suzanne Simard refers to this tree as “The Mother Tree.” In her new book, “Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest,” Suzanne explores the communal nature of trees and their shared network of interdependency.
#nature #environment #trees #forests #interdependency #MotherTree #SuzanneSimard #Bioneers
They Carry Us With Them: The Great Tree Migration
https://emergencemagazine.org/feature/they-carry-us-with-them/
Introduction:
When we think of migration, what often comes to mind is the seasonal movement of animals from one region to another: a repeated, patterned journey in which creatures are drawn in one direction toward a food supply or resource, and in the other direction toward breeding grounds. Humpback whales, for example, spend their summers straining krill, plankton, and small fish through their great baleen plates in the polar region of the North Pacific Ocean. Come winter, when conditions grow harsh and the food supply dwindles, the whales swim south—some as far as five thousand miles—navigating the vast ocean with incredible precision to breeding grounds in Hawaii, Mexico, Central America, and Asia, until cues from their environment beckon them north again. This pattern repeats every year of their lives.
Thousands of species of migratory creatures—at least four thousand species of birds alone—embark on epic journeys across and around the world every year as they are pulled into flowing patterns of movement that correspond to the sun’s steady pull on the Earth. Birds, insects, mammals, and fish follow felt sensory signals in currents of air and water, changes in season, the planet’s magnetic field, the position of the sun and stars, subtle changes in temperature. Earth’s ecological systems, in this way, are woven together by intricate and far-reaching threads of movement.
What about our rooted companions? The northeastern spruce-fir forests that the Bicknell’s thrush journeys to every spring, or the stands of jack pine where the eastern bluebird builds its nests? We often admire trees for their steady rootedness, their resiliency in the face of change; for the gift of shade and companionship that a single long-lived tree might offer us and then our children and our grandchildren, even our great-grandchildren. But trees—or, more appropriately, forests—are perhaps not so rooted, so reliably placed, as we might think.
Right now, around the world, trees are on the move.
Some scientists prefer the phrase “shifts in range” to “migration” when it comes to forests—ecosystems defined by long-lived, woody beings that cannot pull up their roots from beneath the forest floor and walk or swim or fly when conditions around them indicate it is time to do so. But trees do move, they simply do it through successive generations.
Trees reproduce primarily through seed dispersal, relying upon animals, winds, and waters to carry their offspring to fertile soils where they might anchor into the ground and germinate. A mature tree will send seeds in all directions. In a stable environment, where conditions are much the same as when the parent tree began its life, a forest might continue to regenerate in roughly the same location and the same configuration of species, year after year, decade after decade.
But what if a new generation of seeds is cast into the wind during a period of drought? What if winters are no longer as cold as they once were? What if a certain pest can now survive in a forest where it once could not? Suddenly, seedlings might find themselves in a less friendly environment that they are not genetically well adapted to. Perhaps the only ones that will survive are those that happen to be carried, say, northward, or to a slightly higher elevation. As the climate changes in and around forests, seeds might succeed in places where they did not before or fail where they once succeeded.
If this pattern continues, the forest will begin a slow journey in a new direction.
Thus, although they do not move in a to-and-fro pattern annually in the way of the humpback whale, “migration” still seems an apt word to describe the movements of trees, even if such patterns of movement may take several—or many—human generations to reveal themselves as patterns. Certainly, trees do not migrate seasonally in the way we normally think of seasons, but there are many things trees do that don’t fit easily into our normal human way of thinking—at least from our point of view, which tends to have a breadth of focus corresponding to our roughly eighty-year life span.
For example, if we here in the northeastern United States were to zoom out from our understanding of seasons as annual patterns, and step instead into a deeper time, we might begin to see “seasons” in a different way. From this vantage point, a season may be seen as more akin to, say, an era of glaciation.
Let’s step back to about 14,600 years ago, near the end of the Pleistocene, that phenomenal age of mile-high ice, when glaciers ebbed and flowed over the land. We might notice that as the Laurentide Ice Sheet begins its slow retreat as temperatures warm, spruce trees are flowing up from the south: we watch as pointed evergreens with splays of emerald needles work their way across present-day Maine and southern Quebec, spreading farther into Canada, settling along the rocky slopes and poorly drained soils that were recently carved from the ice. Fast-forward 3,000 years to the beginning of the Holocene. The climate is warmer and drier; the ice sheet is vanishing further; the range of the spruce is now shrinking as the trees are pushed farther northward and replaced by pine to the south. Then, in the mid-Holocene, roughly 6,000 years later, there is a period of drought. Much of the eastern hemlock disappears as the lack of water leaves the trees stressed and vulnerable to the infestation of a pest that overtakes the population. It takes 2,000 years for the hemlock to return. During this time spruce move southward again, settling into roughly the configuration that we find them in today.
#nature #environment #trees #forests #tree-migration #tree #migration #reproduction #interactive #JeremySeifert #EmergenceMagazine
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/calloftheforest
Call of the Forest
The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees
In a theatrical feature and 1-hour television documentary, we follow visionary scientist, conservationist and author, Diana Beresford-Kroeger, on her journey to the most beautiful forests of the northern hemisphere. From the sacred #sugi and #cedar forests of #Japan, the ancient #Raheen Wood of #Ireland, the walnut and redwood trees of #America, to the great boreal forest of #Canada, Beresford-Kroeger tells us the amazing stories behind the history and legacy of these ancient forests while also explaining the science of trees and the irreplaceable roles they play in protecting and feeding the planet.
Take a walk in the woods with acclaimed Irish-Canadian scientist and author, Diana Beresford-Kroeger, as she reveals our profound human connection to the ancient & sacred northern forests and the essential role that they play in sustaining the health of our planet.
#CallOfTheForest #documentary #film #nature #connection #reconnection #environment #trees #forests #DianaBeresford-Kroeger #CallOfTheForestTheForgottenWisdomOfTrees #MeritMotionPictures #EdgelandFilms #docu-films
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIqFsePvAqg
#TreesAreTheKey
This inspirational 40-minute documentary has been made in conjunction with The Word Forest Organisation, a Dorset charity that plants trees, builds classrooms and facilitates education in rural Kenya. It also shines a spotlight on the women’s empowerment group, Mothers of the Forest.
Tim Tyson Short is an outstanding filmmaker and over the past three decades he has made films for broadcasters and developmental organisations worldwide. Back in February 2019, he accompanied a small team of Word Forest volunteers to Boré, Coast Province, Kenya. His remit was to tell the story of why we need to plant more trees in the tropics and why we need to support the people who are taking care of the forests. “If we don’t address both of these urgent requirements, we’ll find ourselves at existential o’clock”, says Word Forest CEO, Tracey West.
Tim captured remarkable stories from the tree planters of Boré, including charting the success of the 40 Mothers of the Forest, with group facilitator, Eva Jefa. “I hope by sharing our model for positive change through environmental education, we’ll be able to encourage others to adopt it too,” says, Eva.
Simon West, Chair of Trustees, adds: “Understanding sustainability via #permaculture, for example, allows the community to better resist climate chaos. We’re trying to fill the gaps left by governments and undo the damage done by big corporations.”
Over the past 2 years, the Mothers have addressed social isolation and depression amongst the women in their community by building a framework of sisterly support and resilience. Eva continues: “Women do the majority of the tree planting here. We come together to share knowledge on the best ways to take care of the forest; the planet benefits and we benefit too.”
#TreesAreTheKey #documentary #film #tree-planting #trees #forests #food #food-growing #protection #preservation #conservation #resilience #Kenya #MothersOfTheForest #TimTysonShort #TheWordForestOrganisation #docu-films
Joannah Stutchbury Murdered for Protecting Kenya’s Kiambu Forest
https://www.permaculture.co.uk/news/Joannah-Stutchbury-Murdered-Protecting-Kenyas-Kiambu-Forest
“Joannah Stutchbury was a third-generation Kenyan and she lived in Kiambu, some 18km from Nairobi City Centre. She was a tree lover, a permaculture practitioner, a full-on environmentalist and conservationist, a mum, an earth mother, she had an ardent and unwavering passion for the planet, she was an earth protector, wonderfully bonkers, full of life and joie de vivre. Her vibrant light has been stolen, ripped away from a world that so desperately needed her and there’s a Joannah shaped hole in the Universe.” Word Forest Organisation
#nature #environment #trees #forests #Kiambu #Kenya #JoannahStutchbury #TreesAreTheKey #TheWordForestOrganisation #permaculturemagazine
Before They Fall
Conservation groups, First Nations, and scientists come together in this timely, upcoming short film, as a decades-long battle to protect endangered old-growth forests in BC escalates at Fairy Creek (the last unprotected, intact valley on southern Vancouver Island).
The film explores the characters’ individual relationships with ancient forests, and why it’s imperative we collectively protect them. It touches on potential solutions, like a transition away from old-growth in the future of logging, and Indigenous sovereignty.
#BeforeTheyFall #documentary #film #nature #environment #trees #old-growth #forests #protection #preservation #conservation #activism #grassroots #movement #FairyCreek #FirstNations #Indigenous #sovereignty #CamMacArthur #ecologyst #ecologystfilms #docu-films
Understory
Tongass Documentary
“Understory” is a short film that takes us deep into Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the largest remaining temperate rainforest on the planet. Our guide, Elsa Sebastian, is a young local fisherman who grew up “off-grid” in a remote village surrounded by the vast, ancient forest. When Elsa learns that the U.S. federal government is axing environmental protections for nine million acres of the Tongass, she is driven to action–first fixing up an old sailboat, and then setting sail on a 350-mile expedition along the rainforest’s coast.
Elsa is joined by Dr. Natalie Dawson, a biologist who has spent decades studying Alaska’s wildlife, and artist Mara Menahan. For a month the team documents old-growth trees threatened by logging, witnesses the dark aftermath of clearcuts, visits streams teeming with salmon, and learns about indigenous cultural connections to the Tongass. As Elsa, Natalie, and Mara personally and directly face the devastating impacts of the timber industry on the old growth forest, they struggle to hold onto hope. With the end of their journey comes the realization that saving our last ancient rainforests is more urgent than they could have imagined.
Director Colin Arisman deftly unpacks and presents the story of greed and mis-guided government management that has defined decades of logging in the Tongass. Through breathtaking cinematography and poignant personal experience, Understory makes the case that saving ancient forests like the Tongass is critical to both the resilience of humans and the future of our planet’s climate.
New film documents threats to Tongass National Forest, need for protection
https://www.wilderness.org/articles/blog/new-film-documents-threats-tongass-national-forest-need-protection
#Understory #documentary #film #nature #environment #logging #trees #old-growth #forests #rainforests #protection #preservation #conservation #indigenous #cultural #connections #MarinaAnderson #MaraMenahan #NatalieDawson #ElsaSebastian #Tongass #Alaska #TongassNationalForest #LastStands #tongasslaststands #ColinArisman #TheWildernessSociety #WildConfluence #docu-films
https://vimeo.com/581108863/306d2d2647
Standing with the Ancients
A poetic and in-depth immersion into the forest activists blockading logging roads on Vancouver Island in a fervid attempt to stop old growth logging in Fairy Creek.
When construction of a new logging road was discovered cresting into the untouched Fairy Creek watershed near Port Renfrew on southern Vancouver Island, a group of activists quickly set up a road blockade to stop old growth logging in the area. For nine months, these forest defenders halted road building and old growth logging in the unprotected valley. But when the Supreme Court grants an injunction to remove the camps through police arrests, the blockaders find themselves at the intersection of activism and grief. Will the encroaching threat of arrest stop their efforts to protect Canada’s last ancient forests from being cut down?
In a deja vu of the memorable ‘War in the Woods’ in Clayoquot Sound 30 years ago, Standing with the Ancients is a hybrid mid-length character-driven documentary about the current historical Fairy Creek blockade movement. The film blends an observational, cinema vérité approach with experimental soundscapes and artful archival imagery to create a surrealistic and enveloping embedment into the first-hand experiences of the impassioned forest defenders fighting in the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.
#StandingwiththeAncients #documentary #film #logging #old-growth #trees #forests #activism #resistance #protection #preservation #conservation #FairyCreek #JenMuranetz #EstoriaProductions #docu-films
Planting Trees Encourages Cloud Formation—and Efficiently Cools the Planet
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/more-trees-mean-more-clouds-and-more-cooling-study-says-180978503/
Some scientists questioned the benefit of replanting #forests in midaltitude regions because of albedo—the ability of the Earth’s surface to reflect sunlight—when deciduous #trees lose leaves during cold seasons, reports Martin Woolridge in the Daily Guardian. The #Princeton researchers point out that theory ignores an important consideration.
If done right, restoring and protecting forests can benefit us and the planet in so many ways - including increasing cloud coverage and helping cool the planet. — Community Forests International https://forestsinternational.org/
#nature #environment #tree #planting #tree-planting #albedo #reforestation #CommunityForestsInternational #SmithsonianMagazine
Sir David Attenborough ~ Forests and Land Use
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_lt7kII0xM
"To have any chance of keeping #below 1.5°C of #global #warming, we must halt #deforestation" ~ #SirDavidAttenborough
#UPDATE: Over #130 #countries, covering #90% of the #world’s #forests, have now #committed to #halt and #reverse #forest #loss and #land #degradation by #2030.
#davidattenborough #land-use #COP26 #climatechange #un #summit #restore #natural #world #environment #ecology #nature #indigenous #guardians #ecosystems
#hiking #hikingmanuelacasasoli
From my hikes…
From Obereggen to Passo Lavazè - Dolomiti
August 6th, 2021
This is definitely a trail for #forests and #trees lovers. A marvelous adventure into the alpine forest environment.
Have a good day!
https://manuelacasasoli.tumblr.com/post/667017846445031424/august-6th-2021-from-obereggen-to-passo-lavaz%C3%A8
DimLand
In an attempt to shake off her melancholy, a young woman escapes the city to her family's country cottage only to rediscover a world she'd long forgotten and the old friend who may convince her to leave reality behind.
The journey through DimLand is unique, mystical, and eye-opening; nothing else quite like it exists in the world, and it’s possibly exactly what is needed right now. It can’t be said enough how powerful the message is and how the stellar performance of Brown brings the director’s vision to life. Campbell’s feature-length debut is unlike anything you’ve seen before, and Campbell and Brown’s brilliance is the centerpiece of its success. (Kyle Bain)
Interesting film, though, quite likely not for the masses and instead for those who enjoy quieter films with minimal dialogue. Some wonderful concepts to contemplate.
#movies #film #fantasy #Peter-Collins-Campbell #nature #forests #forest-spirits #childhood #imaginary-friend
"We protect 80% of the planet's biodiversity, yet we are the most vulnerable."
In the run-up to the ground-breaking Our Land Our Nature congress, we asked leading experts and activists from around the world to explain just what’s wrong with “conservation.” Watch, then help us stop the biggest land grab in history, from those who are least responsible for the climate crisis – Indigenous Peoples, who protect 80% of the world’s biodiversity, and other local peoples.
Nancidalia Ramírez Domínguez, coordinator of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests' Youth Movement, claims the key role of indigenous peoples and local communities around the world as protectors of biodiversity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVUKlD9-2WM
#film #video #message #survival #international #indigenous #peoples #conservationism #nomoregreenlies #ourland #ournature #land #nature #nancidalia #ramirez #dominguez #mesoamerican #alliance #forests #youth #movement #biodiversity #world #protection #local #conservation #planet #planeta #landgrab #climate #crisis #apocalipse