The Sad State of Alberta Wilderness
Poisonous SO2 gas emitted during flaring from sour gas wells poison people, wildlife and wilderness. WCWC demands an end this barbaric practice. Technological solutions exist but they cost money and the greedy Alberta oil and gas Industry refuses to Implement them.
- by Gray Jones, Executive Director - Alberta Branch
The state of wilderness conservation in Alberta is deplorable. Here, trans-national corporations rule, and people are proud of it! World-famous wilderness areas, lacking protection, are being roaded and developed by the oil, gas, mining and forestry companies. And now, it appears that the Alberta Government will soon allow logging in Provincial Parks!
A lawyer who works with WCWC's Alberta Branch told us she feels that trans-national corporations have become the de facto governance of Alberta Crown Lands. These include corporations like the giant Al-Pac/Mitsubishi, owners of the world's largest pulp mill in Athabasca. Al-Pac/Mitsubishi has a twenty-year Forest Management Agreement over a cutting area the size of France. Government rules allow them to police and monitor their own activities.
All of Alberta's Wilderness Acts, including the Willmore Wilderness Act, are currently scheduled to be replaced with a proposed Alberta Heritage Act. This Act reduces and in most cases eliminates protection for Alberta's formerly designated "Special Places and Wilderness Areas". If this Act passes, areas like the `protected' Willmore Wilderness will be candidates for logging and oil and gas development.
Outside of our National Parks, which protect about seven percent of Alberta (mostly in the Rocky Mountains), only about four percent of Alberta is provincially protected wilderness. This is totally inadequate and contravenes the International Biodiversity Convention, which Canada signed on December 4, 1992.
Alberta faces far too many ecologically-devastating development projects, including a $26 billion tar sands expansion project, major pipeline, oil and gas well developments and allocation of virtually all of our native forests to trans-national companies to clearcut log. This translates into continuing fragmentation and destruction of our Alberta wilderness heritage. Species like the grizzly bear and woodland caribou are rapidly being driven into extinction as their habitat becomes degraded and destroyed.
After years of protests, the Alberta Government drastically reduces the number of grizzly beer hunting licenses ft Issues. But WCWC Alberta fights on for a total ban.
Over the last few years I've attended many meetings held by local residents opposed to the industrial destruction of their regional wilderness areas including the Willmore Wilderness and the West Country. These meetings were attended not only by environmentalists but also by lawyers, scientists and even Alberta government employees. Most of these people are now willing to stand up and defend Alberta wilderness. Five years ago only environmentalists attended these meetings. Change is coming.
For years, the Alberta Branch of WCWC has successfully defended Alberta's remarkable "Island in the Sky"—the Caribou Mountains Plateau—from development. The oil an( gas industry has pulled out and the Little Red River Cree Nation is vehemently opposing an open-pit diamond mining scheme that would destroy the hydrology and delicate ecology of this lichen-rich, roadless refugium for Alberta's endangered woodland caribou. This isolated plateau, also home to wolves, wood warblers and a host of other species, could become a world class destination for eco-tourists if it was protected as a tribally managed park. We will continue to push for park protection of this unique and fragile area.
This year we plan to develop a proposal to create a tribally managed National Park for the Caribou Mountains Plateau. This Tribal Park would protect unique natural features, including floating fens and endemic lichen species, and could form the core for a U.N. Biosphere Reserve.
WCWC's Alberta Branch continues to be a leader in calling for an end to Alberta's barbaric spring grizzly hunt. Two years ago two-thirds of the grizzlies killed were female, even though the killing of females is restricted. Most of the public and media, including conservative media like the Edmonton Journal, have joined us in calling for an end to the grizzly hunt.
Recently WCWC Alberta learned through a government source that only 12 grizzly hunting licenses will be granted in the year 2000. We count this a small victory for the Wilderness Committee and for all Albertans who love wild nature. But it's not yet good enough. Next year we believe we can end the grizzly bear hunt completely.
Two years ago, we launched our Boreal Climate Campaign with the publication of Who Will Take Global Warming Seriously...and help protect the Earth's vast and vulnerable boreal forests? This educational paper was praised by academics across North America and it has opened the door for me to speak at several conferences. A few copies are left. Write or call and we will send you one.
We are producing a turn on climate change entitled, FOREST OF FIRE AND ICE: CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE BOREAL FOREST. With your generous support, we'll soon complete this much-needed educational film.
WCWC Launches Campaign Activities and Canvass in Winnipeg, Manitoba
In December 1999, WCWC registered as a non-profit society operating in Manitoba. We opened an office in Winnipeg and, until it got too cold, began a door-to-door educational canvass to build citizen support for both local and national wilderness protection issues. The reception was excellent! Ron Thiessen, manager of our new Manitoba office, looks forward to resuming the door-to-door canvass in spring.
WCWC will focus its first efforts on a campaign to end all logging in provincial parks, educating and encouraging citizens to express their views to government. We believe that industrial resource extraction must be banned in all parks across Canada! In total over 3700 sq. km. of Manitoba's parkland is open to clearcut logging. At present, the Pine Falls Paper Co. and Louisiana Pacific are clearcutting in Whiteshell, Nopiming, and Duck Mountain Provincial Parks.
The fate of Manitoba's tall-grass prairie is also of grave concern. Less than one percent of its original extent of 6000 square kilometers remains. Although, through lots of effort, areas of tall-grass prairie are being restored, the still-natural remnants must be immediately protected to ensure that this spectacular endangered species-rich ecosystem survives.
To contact this new Wilderness Committee Office write: WCWC Manitoba c/o Eco Network Office
2-70 Albert Street, Winnipeg, MB R3B 1E7.
As of April -Tel: 204-942-9292
Also in 1999 we launched perhaps our most creative campaign to date, our INTERNATIONAL FLYWAY CAMPAIGN. We propose to protect riparian areas and coves of oldgrowth boreal forest and oldgrowth-covered islands along the Athabasca and Peace River systems, throughout Alberta to the Peace River delta in Wood Buffalo National Park. This Flyway Park would help protect the boreal forest breeding and nesting habitats of the tiny neo-tropical migrant wood warblers, the "champagne of songbirds".
Twenty-six varieties of wood warblers are found in Alberta, including the orange and black plumed Blackburnian warbler and a profusion of yellow, blue, and emerald variations found in species of other families of warblers. The wood warblers' united songs turn the rather somber landscape of our northern boreal forest into a summer jungle-like tropical-sounding chorus. In the coining year we will finalize a map of critical boreal bird habitats that need protection.
Last year we recruited a new campaign assistant and office manager, Larry Phillips, and he is proving himself to be both creative and energetic. Last year our senior canvasser Ted Folkman, passed away. We miss Ted, who was a great ambassador for Alberta wilderness preservation.
All is not doom and gloom in Alberta. There is hope because more and more Albertans, who have been on a sharp learning curve, are speaking out in Alberta cities and rural communities in defense of Alberta wilderness and heritage.
We have faith that this grassroots swell of support will translate in the near future into increased protection of Alberta wilderness because the people of Alberta demand it.
With increased membership, donor and volunteer support, and our "no compromise" stance and refusal to be bought off by industry and government grants, we are becoming the most vocal and powerful wilderness preservation organization in Alberta. Thank you to all our supporters. You are our cornerstone. We invite you this year to become even more active with us in our campaigns!
WCWC Alberta Branch:
310-10168 100A St. Edmonton, AB T5J 0R6
Tel: 708-420-1001 Fax: 708-420-1475
E-mail: wcwcab@web.net
WCWC Surrey-White Rock Chapter Annual Birdathons a Big Success
- Chapter news update by Liz Walker
WCWC's Surrey-White Rock Chapter is run entirely by volunteers and is remarkably active. We focus mainly on local issues and host slideshows and other public events to help educate and inspire the families in our area to care about wild places. For the last five years we have hosted an annual Surrey Earth Day. It has been held for the last few years at Camp Kwomais on a Saturday close to April 22. It's a great family event. Call us for information about Earth Day 2000!
Every spring our Chapter hosts a Birdathon an outdoor event for students that helps them learn about how to identify the birds that frequent Boundary Bay. The funds raised in our 1999 Birdathon enabled us to purchase enough copies of Exploring Estuaries and Wondrous Wetlands - a 144 - page teacher's resource guide-to give a copy to every elementary school in our area. We hope this excellent guide will help local students, teachers and parents become familiar with the estuaries and wetlands of our region.
WCWC's Surrey-White Rock Chapter welcomes new members. If you live in our area, want to attend any of our meetings or events, or would like to help, just call!
WCWC White Rock Chapter and Green Line
c/o 13481-66A Ave., Surrey, BC V3W 2B5
Phone/Fax: 604-591-7899
