Royal Roads gifted underwater old-growth
Royal Roads University president Allan Cahoon (right) accepts a mahogany bowl presented from The WaterForest Group president Doug Stables. The bowl is made from wood similar to the wood donated for flooring at the Robert Bateman environmental centre.
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Updated: June 25, 2009 1:39 PM
Royal Roads University has received a gift a thousand years old, from deep underwater.
About 350,000 board feet of mahogany wood, salvaged from underwater reservoirs, has been donated as flooring for the Robert Bateman environmental centre. The donation is worth about $500,000.
“To hear (about this donation) was like an answer from heaven. It’s a wonderful gift,” said Richard Iredale, architect for the Bateman centre. “(The donation) will cover both (floors in the) the gallery and the convention centre.”
The mahogany has been donated by Victoria-based company The WaterForest Group.
The wood is harvested from the central area of Belize, said Doug Stables WaterForest Group president and RRU graduate.
“The (RRU) vision of sustainability all fit into our model,” Stable said. “The Bateman centre is all about an environmentally sustainable concept and this process helps with the deforestation of tropical rain forests.”
The company has created jobs in Belize by hiring employees and starting a day care centres. The wood is harvested and processed within the country, Stables said.
“All of the trees are already dead, they were logged 225 years ago,” Stables said. “It’s all old-growth timber from over 1,000 years old.”
At the time, local people would cut down the trees and then send them down the river to be processed.
“Rivers were transportation corridors,” Stables said.
Many of the trees did not make it to their final destination and instead sunk, but were preserved in an oxygen-depleted environment, Stables said.
“We see the Bateman centre as increasing the liveliness of the campus,” Iredale said. “(The donation) is a perfect, sustainable product because it’s salvaged.”
The Robert Bateman Centre is planned as a “living building,” a new level of sustainability that takes into account the life-cycle of the structure. The future building will house $10.7 million worth of Robert Bateman’s artwork in a variety of mediums.
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