{"id":4460,"date":"2021-08-30T20:18:38","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T03:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/?p=4460"},"modified":"2021-08-30T20:38:14","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T03:38:14","slug":"food-for-thought-on-bc-forest-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/2021\/08\/30\/food-for-thought-on-bc-forest-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"Which forest would you rather visit (and why?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Compare the two photos in Figure 8, below, and consider the question posed in the caption. The photo on the right was taken in a forest preserve at Cheakamus Centre, just north of Squamish, BC. It was logged somewhat less recently than Stop 2 in Pacific Spirit, with trees 125 years or older.<\/p>\n

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Figure 8. See photo captions.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to local interpreters at Cheakamus Centre, its protected forest lands support a relatively high plant diversity and a large proportion of the region’s culturally important plant species (Pers. Comm., Squamish nation member and local guide, Cheakamus Centre<\/a>). If you get a chance to visit an old growth or ancient forest<\/a> like this one, look for signs of structural and functional complexity: mossiness; a diversity of understory herb and shrubs; varied size and age structure (ie, massive trunks growing alongside younger, smaller stems); and wood in various stages of decay. The latter, decaying wood, is essential to feed and house insect populations and supply the sylvan food web.<\/p>\n

Sadly, old growth forests are not well-represented in post-settler landscapes, with less than 3% of BC’s “most productive old-growth<\/a>” forest remaining. Ongoing and recent (2021) campaigns to protect BC’s old-growth forests will continue to be instrumental in reshaping provincial logging policy (see this article, that quotes Dr. David Tindall, UBC<\/a>), but will require continued vigilance to counter extractive western practices<\/a>, and preserve biodiversity and local Indigenous peoples’ rights and values.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Compare the two photos in Figure 8, below, and consider the question posed in the caption. The photo on the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50391,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3414478],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-virtual-field-trips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50391"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4460"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4465,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460\/revisions\/4465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}