• Take Action Now!
Sierra Club BC
  • Home
  • About
  • Campaigns
  • Education
  • Stories
  • Donate
  • Search
  • Menu

Tag Archive for: wood buffalo national park

Posts

Site C is not a done deal

March 27, 2018/in Conservation and Biodiversity, Featured Story, Site C /by Sierra Club

March 2018

Farmers Ken and Arlene Boon. Photo by Louis Bockner

This month, Peace Valley farmers Ken and Arlene Boon have been touring southern BC with a message: Site C is not a done deal.

While some of their land has been expropriated to accommodate the re-routing of Highway 29, they have not been forced out of their historic farmhouse, and they are not packing their bags.

The list of reasons that the Site C dam project on the Peace River never should have been started is long. And so is the list of reasons why now, more than two years into construction, it still makes sense to scrap the project and restore the Peace River Valley.

The farmland in the valley is uniquely productive, including the land Arlene Boon’s family has farmed for generations. The cost of the project is ever-rising, having gone from $9 billion to $10.7 billion in just the past year. The electricity is expected to be used to power the LNG industry, an industry that – at best – shouldn’t need BC Hydro to subsidize it, and – at worst – threatens to tip us over the climate change edge.

And there’s another huge reason bigger than any megadam: treaty rights. West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations, both Treaty 8 signatories, will finally have a chance to make arguments in court this summer. These BC Supreme Court hearings on their injunction application will last 10 days and are scheduled to take place sometime between July 23 and September 10.

Another Treaty 8 Nation, Blueberry River First Nation, has a major case heading for the courts in Vancouver on April 9. This case will look at the cumulative impacts of industrial development in their territory, which includes major dams on the Peace like Site C.

Downstream of the Site C dam site, the Mikisew Cree First Nation is fighting to protect the Peace-Athabasca Delta (the PAD) from industrial encroachments such as tarsands development and major dams on the Peace River including Site C.

Yvonne Tupper. Photo by Louis Bockner.

We continue to stand with Treaty 8 First Nations against the Site C dam, which threatens their treaty rights and their ways of life.

On the Peace-Athabasca Delta file in particular, the world is watching. Wood Buffalo National Park is Canada’s largest national park and a globally significant World Heritage Site. It protects the Peace-Athabasca Delta, home to fish, moose, bison, endangered migratory birds and a landscape the Mikisew Cree have depended on for millennia. But Trudeau’s inaction on assessing the potential impacts of Site C could put this globally significant region on the List of World Heritage in Danger. After Sierra Club BC raised the issue with UNESCO, the international body strongly criticized Canada for failing to protect Wood Buffalo National Park.

Please call on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to halt Site C construction immediately and keep his promise to honour Indigenous rights!

Send your letter now

 

Feature image: Wood Buffalo National Park, courtesy of MCFN GIR.

The Boon’s tour update!

Site C fundraiser on Salt Spring Island

Crowd gathered at Salt Spring Island Library

We participated in a 7-stop tour organized with Ken and Arlene Boon, organizing events on Salt Spring Island and helping out in Sooke. Over $13,000 was raised across the tour to support West Moberly & Prophet River First Nations legal challenges, as well as the Peace Valley Landowner Association.

Thank you to everyone that came out to participate in conversations on where we go from here, and for their generous contributions to keep this fight alive!

 

Site C dam decision a litmus test of government’s commitment to Indigenous reconciliation and rights

November 30, 2017/in Featured Story, Media Centre, Press Releases, Site C /by Sierra Club

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

November 30, 2017

With a decision on whether to complete or cancel the Site C dam imminent, Sierra Club BC calls for the provincial cabinet to consider its impacts on downstream Indigenous communities.

Responding to an open letter from downstream Indigenous communities calling on Premier John Horgan to cancel the project, Peace Valley campaigner Galen Armstrong said, “If the provincial government’s commitment to reconciliation and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is to mean anything, this government must cancel the Site C dam.”

The government was elected on promises of reconciliation and implementation of the principles of the UN Declaration.

“Site C threatens the land, waters and resources of downstream Indigenous communities with permanent, extensive and irreversible harm,” said Armstrong. “It’s easy to spout the rhetoric of reconciliation and rights, but now those words are being tested by a very real choice.

“This government cannot simply push title and rights aside when they are inconvenient. If it is serious about its commitment, there is no choice but to cancel Site C.

“Sierra Club BC stands with Treaty 8 First Nations and all downstream Indigenous communities who would be negatively impacted by this dam,” said Armstrong. “The people of this region are already facing negative impacts from existing dam development and to make this problem worse by building yet another mega-dam would be a terrible injustice. British Columbia needs to move forward in its relationship with Indigenous peoples, not backward.”

Site C would impact hundreds of culturally significant sites and important hunting and fishing grounds in the Peace River Valley and would threaten water flows downstream in the Peace-Athabasca Delta (protected by Wood Buffalo National Park) upon which the Mikisew Cree depend. UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has called upon Canada to conduct an assessment of Site C’s impact on Wood Buffalo National Park, a World Heritage Site.

When the need for reconciliation with Indigenous communities is combined with the threats posed by the dam to vital farmland, the impact on wildlife and ecosystems, the horrendous cost to Hydro ratepayers and the dramatic reductions we have seen in the cost of renewable alternatives, the balance is decisively tipped in favour of cancelling Site C.

Ninety-four per cent of the province is designated public Crown land; much of this is unceded territory, subject to Indigenous title and rights. Reconciliation for historical wrongs is necessary and important and any plan for our common future must recognize and address the province’s painful shared history.

-30-

Contact:
Galen Armstrong
Sierra Club BC
C: 778-679-3191
galen@sierraclub.bc.ca

Topics

  • Climate Solutions
  • Conservation and Biodiversity
  • Education
  • Flathead River Valley
  • Forests
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Great Bear Rainforest
  • Guest blogs
  • Local Groups
  • Nature Connection
  • Science and Life
  • Site C
  • Youth

Authors

  • Caitlyn Vernon
  • Galen Armstrong
  • James Davis
  • Jens Wieting
  • Kirsten Dallimore
  • Mark Worthing
  • Tim Pearson
Media Centre
  • Press Releases
  • Contact
  • Media Centre
  • Publications
Facebooktwitteryoutubeinstagram

Registered charitable number: 11914 9797 RR0001

© Copyright – Sierra Club BC

© Copyright - Sierra Club BC - Enfold WordPress Theme by Kriesi
  • Contact
  • Media Centre
  • Publications
Donate Now
Link Text

 

Sign up for our e-newsletter!

Get news, action alerts and events delivered right to your inbox.
  • Sierra Club BC will respect your privacy. You can unsubscribe at any time.
MENU
  • Home
  • About
  • Campaigns
  • Education
  • Stories
  • Donate
Scroll to top