Caribou - Endangered

A group of European Union politicians investigating the Alberta oilsands got an earful Friday from First Nations leaders concerned about the environmental and health impacts of the operations.

The leaders wanted to ensure that the visiting delegates returned with a more complete picture of oilsands development than what they received from government and industry, said Eriel Deranger of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. "We wanted them to realize the true impacts, not just on the environment but on people, especially indigenous people," she said of the meeting in Ottawa. "The delegation didn't have a lot of opportunities to hear the opposition on their (oilsands) tour."... Read more »

A lberta conservation groups say the government has caved to industry complaints about a proposed province wide wetlands protection policy, and are decrying a shift toward a new "flexible" approach. The province has seen many years of debate over whether Alberta should implement an overarching no-net-loss policy where oil and gas, forestry and construction companies, along with municipalities, are forced to replace or compensate any wetlands they damage or destroy. On Friday, Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner made it clear that policy is not going ahead. "Not all wetlands are alike," Renner said.

Don't ignore any of our recommendations.

That's the message that the Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project has sent to the governments of Canada and the Northwest Territories in response to attempts at limiting or rejecting most of the 176 conditions the Panel says are necessary for the massive project to begin.

Tasked with reviewing the environmental and socio-economic implications of the project, the independent Joint Review Panel (JRP) concluded that it was possible to mitigate the project's most significant adverse impacts – as long as 176 separate recommendations were fully implemented.... Read more »

ABORIGINAL people will meet with scientists from North America and northern Europe next week in an effort to identify ways to save the world's threatened caribou herds.

The North American Caribou Workshop has registered 400 environmentalists, aboriginal leaders, government regulators and scientists, twice as many as anticipated, to be held at The Fairmont from Monday to Thursday.

"It is a large conference, larger than we expected at the beginning and people are coming from all over the world," Conservation Minister Bill Blaikie said Friday.

The herds are in crisis, prompting some observers to compare caribou in the 21st century to buffalo in the 19th century.

Study after study is sounding an alarm about the animals that have survived ice ages and planetary shifts for 1.6 million years.... Read more »