PACIFIC HERRING
Safeguarding coastal old-growth forests through groundtruthing and visual storytelling.
OUR METHODS
GROUTHTRUTHING
The importance of getting out to the frontlines of resource extraction activity on our coast is the only way to know the truth of how those practises are being conducted. With gumboots to the ground, we have spent an enormous amount of time walking through, monitoring and documenting expansive clearcuts and groves of old-growth flagged to be cut. We have poured over reports, legal documents, and learned the language of the foresters who are in charge of managing how the forests are used in our current system of Professional Reliance. We have spent countless hours in meetings with forestry companies in negotiations to keep the remaining old-growth Sonora Island standing. The things we have found on the ground do not line up with what is on paper. One thing we learn time and time again is that groundtruthing is an incredibly important step in the process of enacting environmental justice.
STORYTELLING
The power of storytelling is undeniable. It has the ability to change how we perceive the world, and thereby act. The stories we tell ourselves and one another shape the world we live in. While there are a number of impactful ways to communicate story, our medium to communicate what we find in our groundtruthing work is photography, filmmaking/videography, writing, and presenting. In our work to protect old-growth ecosystems, storytelling through these mediums has made an impact. It is why individual ancient trees still stand tall to this day. Photographs of stumps, videos explaining shady forestry practises, posters of logging in the Great Bear Rainforest - these have all held what usually remains hidden to the light of day. We believe that when people are shown injustice, they will act to stand up for what is right. It has been the core of our environmental justice work to show the truth of the land so that people can act accordingly.
This year we will be continuing our work to protect the dwindling, critically important original forest ecosystems on the BC coast. The more we are supported by fundraisers like our Coast Calendars, the more time, focus, and energy we are able to put towards this critical work. With each calendar purchased, we are able to get out on the ground to uncover the injustices going on right now in rare old-growth forests in the Great Bear Rainforest. Through groundtruthing and documentation, we can continue to stop unjust practises by extractive industries in their tracks. We can advocate for the health of ecosystems and wildlife, and at the same time celebrate the beauty of the coast with our global community along the way. We communicate these on-the-ground discoveries of unethical, sometimes illegal, oftentimes shady practises through photography, writing, films, presentations, and submissions to a variety of audiences from the Forestry Practices Board (?), local communities, to local and national media.
OUT WALKING
How groundtruthing reveals why EBM and Professional Reliance isn’t working.
THE ISSUE
This film directed, filmed, and edited by Tavish Campbell breaks down why Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) and Professional Reliance isn’t working. This 16 minute video acts as the Sonora Island Community's submission to the Provincial review of the Professional Reliance model in British Columbia, Canada. January 2018.
WHAT WE STAND TO LOSE
Tavish photographed this old-growth cedar tree that was tagged with spray paint in a TimberWest cut block on Sonora Island. The importance of intact forests cannot be overstated.
IRREPLACEABLE ECOSYSTEMS
Old-Growth is great
Climate regulators
Old-Growth is great
your lungs
Old-Growth is great
intact wilderness
Old-Growth is great
Returning ___ months later, the original forest that stood here became a graveyard, this productive old-growth ecosystem now an irreparable scar in the landscape.
You can support our work to protect old-growth forests against environmental injustice by ordering a Coast Calendar.