2019

THE FOREST OF 1000 HEARTS

CLACK CREEK FOREST

The Forest of 1000 Hearts

On a Sunday morning in the fall of 2019, Elphinstone Logging Focus organized a gathering in Clack Creek Forest where volunteers set out to fill the forest with 1000 felt hearts as a way to show community love and solidarity for the trees. The logging of this local forest was imminent and this final gesture was seen as one last desperate attempt to draw some much needed attention to a cut block that played a crucial role in maintaining the original dream of an expansions of Elphinstone Provincial Park. Living Forest Institute supported this venture by creating the above film of the day’s events. The effect was both memorable and successful, earning a two page spread in Maclean’s and a lengthy piece in the Narwhal.

But it grew from there. One of LFI’s creative minds, Kendra Fanconi, took the heart image out of the forest and into the city for when Greta Thunberg came to Vancouver, making signs for those in the crowd to hold up as a symbol of love and support for her efforts in the fight against Climate Change. And when the loggers showed up on the Coast on January 1st, the heart image came full circle and became the key visual of the four gatherings that we organized in our attempts to stop the clear cut.

In the summer of 2019, a theatre director, a sculptor, a graphic artist and an event planner turned a threatened forest into a classroom to teach integrated art and nature curriculum to adults and kids. When the logging trucks arrived in February 2020, they put their artistic twist on old-school protest to rally the community to save Clack Creek Forest.  One event brought together 200 people who were cast as the key species of Clack Creek Forest, everything from the Flying Squirrel, to the Cauliflower Mushroom, to the Roosevelt Elk.  Another created a giant heart for a March of Hearts, and encouraged the community to send valentines to the local Member of Parliament with the message to save the forest before it was too late. 

And too late it was.  Our beloved Clack Creek forest is now gone forever. So too are the wildlife corridor and ecosystem of the rare, low-elevation coastal rainforest between the preserved parts of Mt Elphinstone Park, effectively creating ‘islands of extinction’.  Now there is a need, more than ever, for the community to come together again to heal and to understand our role as stewards to protect other rare, low-elevation, coastal rainforests.

Watch for new programs and campaigns as we continue our work to connect every member of the community to local natural forests inspiring action and preservation.

Stand with Clack Creek Forest

FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 2020, HIGHWAY 101 AT B&K ROAD, SUNSHINE COAST, BC