If we build it, the scientists will come!
Climbing a huge Sitka spruce
Paul George of the Wilderness Committee explains: "We had this idea that if we built a boardwalk into the upper valley, provided basic accommodations, and built some tree platforms, scientists from around the world would come here and carry out research in this ancient temperate rainforest watershed. And you know something? We were right."
The entomologists from the University of Victoria were the first to sign on. "We knew we were getting our feet wet on the political arena when we agreed to get involved in the canopy research program," says Richard Ring. University of Victoria’s one-man entomology faculty and immediate past president of the Entomological Society of Canada. [The canopy facility is located in a Provincial Forest under Tree Farm License tenure to MacMillan Bloedel Limited and is still scheduled for clearcut logging.] "But it was just too good an offer to pass up."
Continues Ring: "The research platforms in the upper Carmanah provide a unique opportunity for science. A systematic study in canopy of a temperate rainforest has never been done before. In Europe, entomologists would give their right am for an opportunity to work in a situation such as this." UVIC entomology lab instructor and PhD candidate Neville Winchester designed the overall canopy research project, devising an elaborate sampling program that compares the elaborate sampling program thatcompares the insect./arthropod life in the canopy off the five Sitka spruce trees with that found on the forest floor and in neighboring clearcuts.
Joe Foy with his kids on top platform
Construction detail of removable braces
Following quickly on the heels of Ring and Winchester was UVIC seabird biologist Alan Burger, who, at the request of UVIC Biology Co-op student Irene Manley, made use of the research station to study the nesting habits of an elusive seabird called the marbled murrelet. This research has already made the significant finds, including the discovery of three marbled murrelet nests nestled high in the canopies of old-growth thees, the first such discoveries in B.C. A third and on-going research project working out of the upper Carmanah research station is a study of amphibians being conducted by Ted Davis, also from UVIC. This is linked to a global effort spearheaded by the Intentional Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to track the population size of amphibians, a class of animal that research is showing is in decline around the world. A number of other researchers have used the research camp to investigate life processes in the intact old-growth forest. Most recently researcher arrived in the valley from Germany to study the river's flooding patterns.
Moving wood for platform in adjacent tree
When the upper Carmanah is fully protected, the Wilderness committee plans to protected, the Wilderness committee plans to turn the facility over to university committed to maintaining the station or donate it to the Diddahi First Nations to manage as a combined ecotourism, research and educational institution.
