#ThickTrunkTuesday

This #ancient yellow #cedar #tree is older than the Great Wall of China & older than the Vatican.
All #ElderTrees - of this colossal & majestic scale, must be preserved & their ecosystems protected.

#MosstodonMonday

Young #cedar #tree is all dressed in magnificent #mosses & #lichen
One of the lovely sights you can see & admire, while exploring the coastal temperate rainforests in BC.

#FootpathFriday through the #forest
Rugged hiking trail, winding through luscious coastal temperate rainforest.

#ThickTrunkTuesday

This beautiful, ancient yellow #cedar tree has a massive, moss covered trunk. It is estimated at over 500 years old. There are very few #ElderTrees of this scale found outside of protected parks on Southern Vancouver Island now. The few remaining unprotected old growth forest tracts should be conserved for stability & longevity of our wild, ancient ecosystems & for the future generations to enjoy/admire/study.

The need to protect old growth forests has been the case for decades but even more important in present times because of accelerated climate change & the increased greedy desperation of corporate ecociders & our governments who aid/abet the pillaging which destroys wild environments that are essential for humans to sustain our lives on Earth. Valuable medicines are found & several medicines have yet to be found in these old growth, coastal temperate, wild rainforests. We need to protect these ancient forests for the above listed & many more important reasons.

#SelfPortrait with ancient elder yellow #cedar #tree. I have a longtime deep connection with #OldGrowth #forests & have spent decades of activism work to try to save & protect them from ecocidal monsters.

How we think about nature, how we treat wild living ecosystems, speaks volumes on our personal character. If we become too disconnected from wild nature, we will turn into demons who destroy our natural life forces.

#ForestFriday

A magical tribute to Canada's #GnarliestTree - in #AvatarGrove in #PortRenfrew.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/canada-s-gnarliest-tree

https://vancouverislandview.com/finding-port-renfrews-biggest-trees

We fought hard to save the ancient trees & their life-sustaining wild ecosystems, to get Avatar Grove area protected & turned into a public park. It was previously on the corporate deforestation list prior to the hard grassroots fight to save this area of Port Renfrew, where old growth forests were rapidly dwindling due to colonial capitalist style of short-term greedy gains & putting nature last. Nature should be first.

Dead #trees are not wasted timber dollars - they are sources of food for literally thousands of beings in a #forest #ecosystem, from tiny microscopic beings to insectivorous birds. Standing dead trees are known as snags, while a fallen dead trees are nurse logs. A cut or natural stump can serve the same #ecological function as a #NurseStump.

Nature wastes nothing. If there is a nutrient source to be had, there is a being to benefit from it. Nurse logs, standing snags & nurse stumps play hosts to all sorts of mosses, lichens, fungi, insects & arthropods, many hidden deep inside, as well as other living beings that prey on them.

Nurse #stumps are still deeply rooted; new plant, tree & fungi life grows out of their tops. Nurse stumps & dead stumps that have no new growth atop are like anchor systems for living trees growing in forests. You destabilize the ecosystem when you remove them from their natural #environment.

The #documentary film that I'm featured in is now available for #free viewing:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb4q_dXo7Bw

It includes footage & shared #deforestation issues with the #Amazon. It's all connected.

I'm holding back tears near the end of it. I was arrested a few days after doing the documentary film interview at gate to River & Landback resistance camps.

A family of #maple #trees, wearing many coats of lichen on their mossy branches

#ForestFriday - from September.

Backroads, backwoods #hiking in #Sooke.
We saw one other person, with a dog, during 3 hours of exploring #forest & #creek & a nearby river.

Fellow #SaveOldGrowth forest defender, Sheena, made a short film. It includes the jingle dance circle with me & several other #environmental #landback #activists on the bridge between River & Landback resistance camps.

River & Landback camps were main strongholds at Fairy Creek blockade. River camp was the first resistance camp set up in 2020 & it ran for a year before final big raid. There are 2 very rough logging roads that lead up to untouched old growth forest tracts from these camps. River camp is also where people could go hike to see/visit with Grandmother & Grandfather cedars. After we were removed, industry started cutting more roads up into the untouched old growth tracts. Teal Jones logging company has since pulled out due to financial issues & everything is up in the air at this time. Temporary deferral was renewed this year for some tracts by this one particular area in the watershed. Still hoping for permanent protections as the elder trees are not included in this small deferral.

"My student documentary on the Fairy Creek/Ada'itsx old growth forest blockade something of a collage, made with many hands and hearts. While the blockade and movement has evolved and gone through many stages, the momentum remains and many still carry forth the activism in heart and deed."

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m4OEGhjc02k

#ThrowbackThursday
Our first big #hardblock at #FairyCreekBlockade in 2020.

#ThickTrunkTuesday
Magnificent #OldGrowth red #cedar #tree

#MonochromeMonday
2021. At Avatar Grove old growth forest park entrance. With some members of Elders for Ancient Trees grassroots activism group.

#Backroads on #DididahtTerritory.
This is part of the #SanJuanRiver & forests in the valley. The #watershed area is under ongoing #ecological threats by industrial #clearcut #logging. This is near #CarmannahWalbran #BritishColumbia provincial park.
The forests here are longtime foraging, mating & birthing grounds for the #CowichanValley Roosevelt elk herd. The San Juan is an important salmon bearing river. The old growth forests here are home to several #SpeciesAtRisk & #EndangeredSpecies.
There is ongoing eco activism work to try & protect more of the forests & #waterways in this #wilderness valley on Southern #VancouverIsland.

We need serious #ForestryReform in #BritishColumbia immediately. We need to implement the science-based recommendations from experts who were commissioned multiple times by #BCNDP #BCgovernment to produce #OldGrowth Strategic Reviews (twice during Horgan's regime). They promised to implement the recommendations but they have not done so. Our old growth forests aren't numerous anymore & yet our #capitalist driven, #neoliberal government is still allowing them to be cut. In a severe #ClimateCrisis - we're stuck with political leaders who are still siding with ecocidal corporations. We need to ban corporate lobbyists. They never have citizens' best interests at heart & our politicians are too easily bribed.

I spent 3.5 months here in my first #CivilDisobedience action in my teens. Which led to a lifelong commitment to protect all old growth in BC.

Produced by Nettie Wild, Song by Bob Bossin. Featuring the 1993 Clayoquot Sound (Kennedy River Bridge) Logging Blockades.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk_olVLUgKI

My frontlines interview with Donna Clark from #XRVancouver has finally uploaded.

I talk about why I'm at the blockades. I talk about the ecocide on my family's matriarch homelands. I talk about the devastating & longterm effects of the US invasion on Vietnam. I talk about how we need to protect/study/find more ancient forest medicines. I talk about colonialism & brutalities. I talk about my amazing resilient villager relations. I talk about how ecocide destroyed my matriarch village ways of life.

I also bring up the sellouts.

We were carpet bombed by #USA #racist terrorists. Fact.

Please take the time to listen to what I have to say. Thank you for those who care enough to listen to me & why I keep fighting for a better world - for all of us.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lB-EscumG-g

#Cree bro-friend comrade, Daun/Totem, doing Indigenous drum ceremony at Waterfall resistance camp.

From 2021 frontlines.

Respect the land!

Do not destroy Mother Nature for short term human profits.

The natural consequences for violating wild nature is immeasurable.