A photo of a giant old-growth cedar tree in BC has won a prestigious international photography award.

Ancient Forest Alliance photographer TJ Watt won the Royal Geographical Society’s Earth Photo 2024 prize for the image he took of a tree in Clayoquot Sound. The international competition—created by the London-based organization to celebrate the beauty and fragility of our planet—had over 1,900 entries globally; in the end, 11 photographers were recognized.

Watt’s winning photo, called Flores Island Cedar, features the giant tree with Indigenous Hereditary Representative Tyson Alteo beside it for scale.

More than 17 feet wide and 151 feet tall, it’s the largest tree Watt has ever found in his two decades of exploring BC’s forests for giants. He suspects it’s well over a thousand years old.

“I’m thrilled and honoured to have received an award in the Earth Photo 2024 contest,” Watt says in a statement. “I always hope my images of old-growth forests reach as wide an audience as possible, inspiring people and raising global awareness of the need to protect them.”

The tree was found on Flores Island, just off the coast of Vancouver Island, on the unceded territory of the Ahousaht First Nation. Its forest is part of a new land conservancy that sees the protection of 76,000 hectares in Clayoquot Sound.

“It’s not always the case that the forests featured in my photographs have a happy ending. But in this case, I’m so grateful that they do,” says Watt. “The announcement of the new conservancies in Clayoquot is incredible news, and I extend my deepest gratitude to the leadership and vision of the Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht people, who’ve now secured protection for some of the grandest old-growth rainforests on earth in their territories. Their proper care and stewardship go back thousands of years, and as a result, one can still find themselves standing in magnificent ancient forests home to trees that have lived for more than a millennium.”