The tiny lichen that could stop Teal-Jones from cutting down Fairy Creek’s old forest

The drama that unfolds in Fairy Creek is a story of very big things: gigantic trees of great age, a forest that scientists say could date back to the Ice Age intact. Then there are the protests, surpassing Clayoquot Sound as the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. Not to mention the huge and violent response from the RCMP, which has received more than 90 complaints before the Civil Complaints and Review Commission, the federal watchdog that holds the RCMP accountable.

If that’s not big enough, many are calling Fairy Creek not just a war in the woods, but a fight for the planet itself – against climate change and those forces of industry and government that refuse to address the crisis of proper way as the planet heats up and burns.

However, according to the scientists I spoke to this week, humans, so prone to the big picture, may be looking at things through the wrong lens. If we want to save the rainforest and get closer to understanding climate change, we must also look at the tiny, tenacious, and incredibly complex organisms that exist within the forests of Fairy Creek.

Lichens.

A rare species, the Old growth mottled belly lichenrecently discovered around Fairy Creek by artist and citizen scientist Natasha Lavdovsky, it could hold the keys to stopping logging and show us how nature creates wetlands that stop wildfires, protecting them from the worst ravages of climate change.

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His discovery is, in itself, like something out of a fairy tale.

A Princeton-educated artist and citizen scientist, Lavdovsky went to the Fairy Creek rainforest last May, and settled near the “Heli Camp” protest camp to record the soundscape that lichens create and live within. He engraved marble mérgolas on century-old trees, red-legged tree frogs in the roadside ditch, the flaps of tents open as protesters rose at dawn to block the road. One afternoon, as he was walking, he noticed a fallen yellow cedar, with roots weakened by the forest road. As he got closer, he saw, on its exposed canopy, masses of the rare Specklebelly lichen.

For Lavdovsky, it was like finding gold.

“It was beautiful,” he told me. “Blue on top, pale peach on bottom, with sinuous edges and little white flecks. A marvel.”

Once he saw it, his eyes, as if they were clean, began to see him everywhere: in the trees next to a tree, in groves that almost completely covered the trunks. Scientist Loys Maingon, a freshwater expert and director of research at the Strathcona Wilderness Institute, believes she may have discovered the largest population in British Columbia and Canada of this rare species. “It is not found often,” he said. “There are only seven locations in British Columbia and, in some locations, only one or two individual plants. But he found a population with around 600 individuals. “

Bill Jones, an elder from the Pacheedaht Nation, whose ancestral lands span the area and who authorized biologists to inspect it, described Lavdovsky as “very excited” when she went to talk to him about the find. “I told him, we better find a way to protect him,” he said. “It doesn’t grow anywhere except in that special environment.”

However, almost all of the Specklebelly found so far in the Fairy Creek area is in Cut Block 8022, scheduled for imminent logging (see map). It is also found directly on road construction paths, even though its rarity dictates that it should have a 200 meter buffer zone around every tree it is found in. Even the BC Timber Sales guidelines specify this protection mattress.

In addition, according to the federal Species at risk law, which includes vulnerable lichens on the blue list, an immediate inventory should be conducted to record, monitor and protect the species.

If the provincial government does its duty as protector of endangered species, the discovery of this lichen could signal a David and Goliath moment. A lichen that could have the power to stop Teal-Jones, the logging company operating in Fairy Creek, in its tracks. But so far, the British Columbia government is not fulfilling that role, and is in fact the only provincial government, other than Alberta, that has not created a legally binding framework for protect rare species.

So right now, the only real protection for the lichen is the protesters blocking the road.

For Lavdovsky, Specklebelly, in addition to being beautiful and important “as a being in his own right,” is also a metaphor for community. Each Specklebelly lichen is a complex of multiple beings, he explained, consisting of fungi, algae, yeasts and cyanobacteria.

“They have figured out how to live together,” he said, pulling nutrients out of nowhere and distributing them to the mother tree. “Unlike the colonizing humans,” he added, “who take from the land of indigenous peoples and put pollutants into the air.”

There’s another superpower in this lichen – in this wildfire season, with dry forests like tinder, there’s a lot to learn from how lichens cool down and regulate temperature.

“Lichens are only unsaturated 30 percent of the time,” Maingon explained. The remaining 70 percent of the time they expand to absorb water. This enables them to play a huge role in cooling the environment. By cutting down the ancient forest, we interfere with these intricate cooling systems. This increases forest fires and a warming climate.

“An ancient forest is completely different from a secondary forest,” Maingon said. With an old forest, “its nitrogen is fixed by lichens and mosses, while a newer forest fixes its nitrogen with alder and broom. They do their job, but they don’t hold the water. “

The result? Less fluffy primary forests, many more wildfires.

As for the fellings, Maingon explained that they increase the surrounding temperature even more deeply.

Then there are the “flying rivers” created by centuries-old forests rich in lichen: misty air masses that cross the province, basin by basin, bathing the interior. “The water that originates from the forests of the Pacific coast circulates throughout the boreal forest and through the grasslands,” he explained. “If our forest pumps stall because they are damaged, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba will feel the drought, as much as we saw this year.

“These complex forest systems are beyond any engineering model of how they capture and produce water,” Maingon said. “Once again, we (humans) are destroying things that we don’t even understand.”

As for the other “big story” unfolding in Fairy Creek, I asked Lavdovsky what he thought of the protesters facing the RCMP right now.

“Most people have reverence for the beings that live in the forest,” he said. “They (the blockers) collaborate, they work together. They thrive by creating a community of support. Actually, “he added,” they look a lot like lichen. “

From Natasha Lavdovsky, that’s high praise.

Shaena Lambert reports on Fairy Creek for National Observer of Canada. She is the award-winning author of the novels. Petra and Radiance and the collections of stories Oh honey and The falling woman. Read more about his work at shaenalambert.com.