As an urban old-growth forest, the Stadium Woods is exceptionally rare on a college central campus. The woods are used for teaching and research by the College of Natural Resources and the Environment, The College of Agriculture and Life Science, The College of Science and College of Architecture and Urban Studies as well as citizen science groups.
The video “Preserve Stadium Woods” by filmmaker Chris Risch about the long-fought effort to preserve a 12-acre stand of old-growth forest on the Virginia Tech campus will be presented at the Lyric Theater (135 College Ave.) on Saturday at 3 p.m. in conjunction with the movie “Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry” about farmer, poet and philosopher, Wendell Berry and his rural Kentucky neighbors.
The “Preserve Stadium Woods” video was publicly released on YouTube Friday by its filmmaker Chris Risch, a 2015 VT graduate, who will attend the Lyric viewing.
Risch had produced “Save Stadium Woods” a 2012 video championing the local and popular effort to save the forest from being leveled for a practice field.
“Stadium Woods is exceptionally ancient and rare. As an ancient old-growth forest it has been in existence long before European settlement. It is older than any “protected” historical site such as Mount Vernon, Monticello, Williamsburg and Jamestown,” Rebekah Paulson, executive director, Friends of Stadium Woods wrote in a correspondence.
Saving the wood in 2012, was only a reprieve, however, since the forest, which now serves as an outdoor lab for VT students and citizen scientists, a beautiful ecosystem, habitat, and an historical vestige of regional landscape, is not legally protected.
“The near- and long-term health of the old-growth forest is at this time totally dependent on the VT administration’s implementation of the Stadium Woods Stewardship Management Plan (2016) and eventual permanent preservation of the woods. If neither goals are implemented the forest could cease to exist from neglect and abuse, and eventual campus development could destroy it entirely,” Paulson wrote.
The old growth forest must be preserved and this is why we have released on YouTube the new video “Preserve Stadium Woods. The film uses drone footage and new interviews with scientists and long-time supporters, Jeff Kirwan, Erica Largen, and Rebekah Paulson. This video has been thoughtfully created over the last couple years and we are thrilled to finally share its release with you,” the announcement said.
For more information contact Rebekah Paulson, executive director, Friends of Stadium Woods at rebekah.paulson@comcast.net and www.savestadiumwoods.com