West Coast Environmental Law Association has provided legal services to citizens in British Columbia concerned about threats to the environment since 1974. One important area of our mandate involves working to improve environmental legislation, regulations and policy.
On behalf of West Coast, we congratulate you on your appointment as Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks. We look forward to working with you.
As the new Minister, we urge you to place a high priority on improved legal protection for the environment in British Columbia. Many important advances have been undertaken in the past few years in this province. We urge you to maintain the progress made to date and to build on these initiatives to promote sustainability in B.C.
West Coast works on a number of environmental legal issues and we would like to draw your attention to the following issues we see as most pressing:
- Pulp mill regulations
- Contaminated sites regulation
- Action to address global climate change
- Reform of the Water Act
- Enacting the Fish Protection Act
- Protection of biodiversity and endangered or threatened species
- Promoting protection of ecologically significant private land
- Improving the Forest Practices Code
- Enacting the B.C. Environmental Protection Act
- Strengthening pollution prevention initiatives
- Addressing environmental issues connected to urban growth
- Access to digital maps