What a mess! Huge tree trunks pile up like a hurricane. The meter-long roots of a fallen colossus look like a giant squid, stretching its arms towards the hikers. Some are decomposed by worms and beetles - you literally wade through wood flour. Dense moss covers the trunks.
An almost enchanted jungle grows in Walbran Valley on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The area is so remote that only a few hikers get lost in the "Emerald Grove", the "Emerald Grove", where they bathe under curtains of lichen in green glowing pools. Soft seed rugs cover the ground - squirrels have gnawed on the cones in the treetops of the coastal firs, which are up to 80 meters high.
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Vancouver Island: Lovely Doug, the treeWhat looks like hiking trails are actually "Prankenwege", leaked by bears on their routes. Yellow banana snails crawl through the thicket in search of fresh mushrooms. Some tribes are twisted like corkscrews, others are riddled with woodpeckers. Some special trees bear names like the "Mordor Tree" or the "Castle Giant".
"Who knows how long this forest will last," says TJ Watt. Color blobs and flutter bands mark trees that are to be felled, including centuries-old Western Red Cedar, in German giant life trees. Watt, wiry and with conspicuous red hair, has become self-employed as a guide for hikers and photographers. And he is involved in the "Ancient Forest Alliance" for the protection of the rainforests.
Three quarters of the jungle is lost
"In high school, I did not learn a word about our forests," says TJ, who wandered through the wilderness as a teenager with his camera. It was only from conservationists that he learned that Canada is one of the last western countries still cutting down its jungles.
When the first Europeans arrived at the end of the 18th century, Vancouver Island was still almost completely covered in jungle. "Three quarters of them are destroyed," says Watt, "in the river valleys with the highest biodiversity even 90 percent." Only just under ten percent of the primeval forests are protected. However, the wood industry is still cutting it off bit by bit.
Here, the temperate rainforest of the American Pacific coast is particularly valuable: it slows down climate change because it stores a lot of carbon dioxide. It serves more than 400 higher animal and plant species as habitat. And it is permeated by clear rivers - spawning grounds of wild salmon. He always served the natives as a drugstore and pharmacy, as a supermarket and a wood depot.
But environmentalists are now fighting back. "But we do not chain ourselves to trees," says TJ. "Our work is not that glamorous." Instead, they talk to politicians, business representatives, trade unionists. And they already achieved a victory: After two years of fighting, the virgin forest "Avatar Grove" near Port Renfrew was put under protection - among other things, because the local chamber of commerce took the side of the environmental activists.
From logging village to tourist place
TJ has come up with the name Avatar Grove: "At that time, the film 'Avatar' inspired the moviegoers," he explains. "When we named the forest after that, all the media took it." Individual trees also got a name, such as 'Lonely Doug': The 70-meter-tall Douglas fir in Canada, which was the only one to forestall a forest worker, became a landmark of the resistance.
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TJ accompanies the fight with the camera - his photos of shaved slopes, which look like a hurricane, attract attention in many media. "The camera is my most powerful tool to protect the places I love," he says pathetically. Later, films were added, which he produced with the help of a drone. Today the forest of avatars attracts visitors from all over the world and the former logging village is transformed into a tourist resort.
With the camera in its luggage, TJ Watt regularly brings guests to the green cathedral, where gigantic spruce trees, Douglas firs and giant trees of life form the dense roof. Ferns and new shoots sprout from fallen trunks. Again and again, the visitors unpack their tripods and pose next to the giants to set the dimensions in scene. Every photo shared on the Internet raises awareness of the forest and its need for protection.
The author Oliver Gerhard from the journalist office srt researched with the support of Tourism British Columbia.