TJ Watt Photography

10/02/2026

Pretty cool! National Geographic Travel has featured my image of a record-sized cedar tree on Flores Island alongside Ahousaht Hereditary Representative Tyson Atleo! 🌲📸

Destination Canada selected the image for its 'Canada. A Year in Pictures' gallery with National Geographic. The gallery celebrates the landscapes, people, and places that make Canada extraordinary, with this photo highlighting perhaps the most impressive tree in the country and the longstanding relationship between the Ahousaht people and old-growth forests.

Located on Flores Island in Ahousaht territory in Clayoquot Sound, the tree, nicknamed “The Wall,” is more than 17 feet (5 metres) wide near its base and around 150 feet (46 metres) tall. I captured the photo as part of my project work with the Trebek Initiative.

Thankfully, the tree now stands protected as part of the biggest old-growth protected-areas victory in decades: 76,000 hectares of new conservancies in Clayoquot Sound, established through the leadership of the Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht Nations in partnership with the BC government.

It’s not always the case that the forests featured in my photographs have a happy ending. I'm thrilled this one does, and that this historic achievement continues to be recognized and celebrated.

At more than 17 feet wide and 150 feet tall, this ancient western redcedar is likely well over a thousand years old. On assignment in Canada, National Geographic Explorer and photographer TJ Watt visited this tree with Ahousaht Hereditary Representative Tyson Atleo, which Watt said "reflected the longstanding relationship between the Ahousaht people and old-growth forests—This remarkable place is now protected thanks to their leadership across a series of new conservancies in Clayoquot Sound."

09/26/2026

Mystical Doug-firs 🌲🌫 Nice to see some rain again.

Artlish River, Vancouver Island.

08/25/2026

Lightning over PKOLS (Mt. Doug) during Saturday's giant storm ⛈

07/10/2026

Giant cedar at Jurassic Grove 🌲🦖

04/07/2026

Now that’s a giant conk! 🍄

Each layer on this Artist’s conk (Ganoderma applanatum) represents about a year of growth. Counting the rings, this one lived to nearly 100 years old! It weighed so much we could barely lift it.

Ancient Forest Alliance's Ian Thomas found the giant fungus beside some massive old stumps in a second-growth clearcut on northern Vancouver Island. It likely began growing on one of the original old-growth trees that stood here decades ago and continued to grow on the stump long after the tree was logged.

Pretty wild what you come across in the woods sometimes 🌲

03/31/2026

All five members of BC’s 2021 Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) — the independent experts appointed to map old-growth forests in BC — say the province is failing to save old-growth today.

🚨 Take action! Send a message to the BC government today: https://ancientforestalliance.org/send-a-message

In 2021, the TAP was tasked with identifying the most at-risk old-growth forests for potential protection. Yet today, about half of the most at-risk areas they identified remain at risk, and the BC government continues to approve logging in many of these areas while long-term protection plans remain unfinished.

That includes places like the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni, home to some of the finest remaining tracts of endangered old-growth forest on Vancouver Island.

“Purposely causing extinction is not just a moral failure but also a high economic, ecological and social risk,” said the TAP members.

Since the NDP’s re-election at the end of 2024, the province has been backsliding on its old-growth commitments, and we commend the panel for speaking out.

In their letter to Premier Eby, they highlight a key missing solution to protect the remaining old-growth in BC: the need for “solutions-space funding” to compensate First Nations for lost forestry revenues when they choose to defer logging in at-risk old-growth forests — something AFA has also long called for.

Protecting old-growth forests in BC is critical to building a truly resilient and sustainable future for forests, people, and the economy – needed now more than ever.

It’s time the BC government shows real leadership and delivers the funding needed to protect the remaining at-risk old-growth forests, instead of actively facilitating their destruction and blocking progress.

📰 See the full coverage in CBC News: https://r.pebmac.ca/https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/old-growth-forests-bc-failing-to-save-9.7128469

📸 Before & after old-growth logging by BC Timber Sales – the BC government's own logging agency – in the Nahmint Valley.

01/23/2026

Magical misty weather in the woods this winter 🌈🌲

Cool weather + sunshine = 🪄

12/11/2025

A minute of waves crashing on Haida Gwaii 🌊😌