Rainforest Panorama I tetrahedron
<i>The Rainforest Coast of British Columbia encompasses the largest remaining intact temperate rainforest in the world. While it is often the beauty of BC’s coastal rainforests which enthral visitors from throughout the world, it is the productiveness of these forests that intrigue scientists. BC’s coastal rainforests feature the highest biomass (the total amount or mass of organisms in a given area) per hectare of any ecosystem on earth. Trees here can often live more than 1,000 years, reaching hundreds of feet into the air, with diameters exceeding 9.4m.

Coastal rainforests provide critical habitat for incredibly varied populations of animals. Well-known species include grizzly bears, eagles, and the rare Kermode or Spirit bear, an unusual snow-white variation of the black bear.

The coastal rainforests are among the rarest and most productive ecosystems on the planet; they are also disappearing before we know almost anything about them. It’s as if we are burning the library before we have read the books. Only in the last 10 years have scientists begun to learn about the fragile system of interrelationships that makes up the beautiful web of life in these “green cathedrals”. In the meantime salmon, which our fisheries as well as a multitude of other animals depend upon, are disappearing forever along with many other species that can live only in coastal rainforests.

The temperate rainforest is very rare, originally covering less than 0.2% of the earth's land surface. Now, over one half of that limited original temperate rainforest has been logged and altered; of that which remains worldwide, over one quarter is found on BC's coast.

Recently environmental organizations have been able to turn the spotlight of international concern to BC’s rainforests. Efforts to protect such ‘Great Spaces’ as the Kitlope and Great Bear Wilderness, have become internationally known as have the Queen Charlotte Islands’ Gwaii Haanas, and the Walbran Valley.

But time is running out. So far only 5.8% of BC’s ancient rainforests have been protected and much of the rest has been scheduled to be clearcut in the next decade.</i>

(From <a href="http://www.spacesfornature.org/greatspaces/rainforest.html" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Great Wild Spaces</a>.)

This forest along Chapman Creek was logged (by hand) about a century ago. You can still see notched stumps scattered through the forest, with new trees sprouting from their tops.

This High Dynamic Range 360° panorama was stitched from 72 bracketed photographs with PTGUI Pro, tone-mapped with Photomatix, processed in Color Efex, and finally touched up in Aperture. (It’s not really as complicated as it sounds, just a matter of using one tool for each job.)

Original size: 20000 × 10000 (200.0 MP; 1.07 GB)

Location: Sechelt, British Columbia, Canada. 
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