In May I spent time with colleagues from the Northwest Institute for Bioregional Research in Treaty 8 territory in northeastern BC listening to Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents talk about the cumulative effects of development projects on the health of their land and communities. Over the past few decades the region has experienced an
Environmental Law Alert Blog
Through our Environmental Law Alert blog, West Coast keeps you up to date on the latest developments and issues in environmental law. This includes:
- proposed changes to the law that will weaken, or strengthen, environmental protection;
- stories and situations where existing environmental laws are failing to protect the environment; and
- emerging legal strategies that could be used to protect our environment.
If you have an environmental story that we should hear about, please e-mail Andrew Gage. We welcome your comments on any of the posts to this blog – but please keep in mind our policies on comments.
This week West Coast Environmental Law held a meeting “Go With the Flow: Meeting on Regulations for the BC Water Sustainability Act” with allies in the conservation world to discuss our Expectations for the next critical phase of the BC Water Sustainability Act – the development of the regulations that will make the Act effecti
The 10th annual Paddle for the Peace was the most emotional I've witnessed since joining the annual solidarity float down northeast BC’s majestic Peace River in protest of the proposed Site C dam.
I started as a summer student at WCEL in the beginning of May, and quickly found out how fast things move here.
In June 2014, the federal Cabinet issued an order approving Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipelines and tankers project. Eight First Nations, four environmental organizations and one labour union have launched legal challenges to the federal government’s approval of the Project.
When the BC government unveiled its new water pricing scheme, we wrote that while a major increase, the amounts being charged seemed very low.
On June 18, the West Coast Environmental Law Association hosted a telephone town hall on what the rolling back of Canada's environmental laws means for oil tankers and the health and security of BC's coast.
This is a guest post by Allison Russell, a lawyer at Rana Law, and Emily Beveridge, an articling student at Rana Law, who are part of the legal team representing a group of Treaty 8 First Nations in their legal challenges against the controversial Site C Dam.
Overview
In a recent post, I wrote about the broad significance of the recent Dutch court decision ordering the Dutch government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Earlier this week (June 24th) a Dutch court ordered the Dutch government to ramp up its climate change plans – to achieve at least a 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions relative to 1990 levels by the end of 2020. It’s an incredible win – one that is being rightly celebrated by climate activists around the world.