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When environmentalist Ken Wu was a child, his father gave him a book that blew him away: an illustrated natural history of Canada.

One photograph, of four couples dancing on top of an enormous stump, captured his imagination. “I begged my parents to take me to B.C. to see old-growth forests,” said Wu, whose family lived in Toronto.

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Wu, who went on to study environmental sciences at UBC and now lives in Victoria, has been a passionate advocate of sustainable forestry practices ever since. Now he wants Canadians of all cultural backgrounds to have access to, and be educated about, the rare wonders of old-growth forests.

Photo by DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS

On Saturday, Wu led the first session to train Mandarin-speaking environmental tour guides in Stanley Park.

The educational program is co-sponsored by the Ancient Forest Alliance (www.AncientForestAlliance.org), the Hua Foundation (www.HuaFoundation.org) and the Stanley Park Ecology Society (www.StanleyParkEcology.ca). The aim is to make ecology, conservation and enjoyment of B.C.’s old-growth forests accessible to the half-million Lower Mainland residents who have one of the Chinese languages as their mother tongue.