'This has to change': B.C. ecologist who caught the attention of actress Amy Adams talks old-growth logging
The work of a world-renowned B.C. ecologist has caught the attention of Hollywood.
Suzanne Simard will be played by Amy Adams in an upcoming movie about her life. The film will be based on the University of British Columbia professor's book, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.
The memoir on plant communication covers three decades of Simard's research, and was a New York Times Best Seller. Publishing company Penguin Random House describes the author as "the world's leading ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and to the living things in the forest."
MOVIE TO COME
In an interview on CTV Morning Live Monday, Simard was asked what it is about her story that enticed A-listers including Adams.
"I think, like the rest of the world, they're really concerned about the status of our forests, the state of our environment," she said.
She drew a comparison between her work and the 2016 film Arrival, which also stars Adams. Simard's story doesn't include the sudden appearance of aliens who encourage conservation efforts, but the message about fighting against climate change is similar.
She said she thinks it's a message that was meaningful to Adams.
Simard was asked about the process; how did her memoir catch the actress's attention?
She said she and her agent wrote up a "treatment" of her memoir, a document that presented what a film version of the book would look like. Simard said they had no idea if the idea would be picked up, but they sent it to an American talent and media agency and hoped for the best.
That company sent the story to a number of production companies, where it caught the attention of Amy Adams' Bond Group Entertainment. A company owned by actor Jake Gyllenhaal was also on board.
"There was lots of interest," Simard said.
Her story involves more than the research Simard is known for. The ecologist entered her field at a time when few women were in forestry.
She grew up in a logging family in B.C.'s inland rainforest.
Simard saw the process of selective logging of old-growth trees – "seeing how the forest could be actually forested while leaving the forest intact" – firsthand, and went on to become a forester.
"That's when clearcutting was just taking off," she said.
OLD-GROWTH LOGGING
"I know from that experience and then studying it for 40 years that there are better ways to harvest our forests, to get what we need from them while still leaving them as healthy, productive ecosystems, and I think that story applies to most forests, including what's going on at Fairy Creek."
The Fairy Creek watershed on Vancouver Island has been the site of demonstrations since last year. Private logging company Teal Jones has a licence to harvest the trees on the site, but protesters are trying to stop the removal of the cedars, many of which are hundreds of years old.
Dozens have been arrested in the few weeks following an injunction against the blockades.
As Simard spoke to CTV News Monday, activists planned to gather at a Teal Jones Group's sawmill in Surrey, B.C., to protest the old-growth logging.
Also on Monday, a group of B.C. First Nations said they'd reached an agreement to defer old-growth logging in parts of southwestern Vancouver Island for two years, including in the Fairy Creek area.
Demonstrators called the agreement "far short of what we need," saying it would still allow industrial logging of old-growth trees across southern Vancouver Island.
EMISSIONS OUTPACE FOSSIL FUELS
Simard said only three per cent of the big old-growth forests are left, the rest have been clear-cut.
"The thing is that these forests along the West Coast – actually in the inland rainforests of B.C. as well and all down through California, up to Alaska – are hotspots for biodiversity and for carbon storage," she said.
"And they of course link to the big global carbon cycle… Most people don't know this, but the amount of emissions from logging, clear-cut logging in British Columbia, actually outpaces that from fossil fuels."
Taking wildfires into account, which she attributes to climate change, the emissions triple, Simard said.
"What we're doing in forests is so important in the global carbon cycle, and it's amazing that it's not even counted. When we're doing our national carbon budgets, we don't even count what's going on in forests," she said.
"This has to change so that we have a better idea of the value of these forests standing up, instead of as two-by-fours and filling the pockets of corporate interests."
Watch the full interview above.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Maple Leafs fall to Bruins in Game 3, trail series 2-1
Brad Marchand scored twice, including the winner in the third period, and added an assist as the Boston Bruins downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round playoff series Wednesday
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
New Indigenous loan guarantee program a 'really big deal,' Freeland says at Toronto conference
Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was among the 1,700 delegates attending the two-day First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference that concluded Tuesday in Toronto.
'Life was not fair to him': Daughter of N.B. man exonerated of murder remembers him as a kind soul
The daughter of a New Brunswick man recently exonerated from murder, is remembering her father as somebody who, despite a wrongful conviction, never became bitter or angry.