We’ve been watching the BC government’s review of “professional reliance” with keen interest. The results of the review have the potential (done right) to significantly strengthen public health and environmental protection in BC or (done badly) to focus attention away from some of the fundamental problems with BC’s environmental laws.
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.
Stronger laws for MPAs mean better protection for marine mammals
Facing the towering pile of debris collected at the Denman Island market, I paused as an uneasy feeling of déjà vu stirred from my visit to the community shoreline clean-up one year ago.
“Rivers are the arteries of our planet; they are lifelines in the truest sense.” – Mark Angelo, Founder, World Rivers Day
7:29am, Thursday, August 30th, 2018:
We’re in a boardroom high above downtown Vancouver, not far from Robson Street where I’m told there used to be a great hunting path. I’m on the Federal Court of Appeal’s website, refreshing my web browser obsessively.
Canada claims to care about climate change, but the reality is that we have missed pretty much every climate promise that the federal government has set to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Why?
Getting to the Kvai River Lodge, located in the Great Bear Rainforest deep in the heart of Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) Territory, is no simple matter. The journey presented many pedagogical opportunities for reflecting upon the importance of relationships.
Each summer at West Coast brings a new cohort of law students from across the country, eager to learn and gain experience in environmental and Indigenous law.
Cooperative actions to explore and protect the deep sea
Perhaps the best-known examples of cooperative marine governance agreements in Canada are in Haida territories on the north Pacific coast, where the exciting deep sea Northeast Pacific Seamounts Expedition just concluded.
The Tsilhqot’in National Government (TNG) is back in court fighting to protect its lands and waters – Teztan Biny (Fish Lake), Yanah Biny (Little Fish Lake), and Nabas (the surrounding area) – from Taseko’s mining activities.