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.

2020 Canadian Law Blog Awards Winner

On September 26, the British Columbia Supreme Court issued its ruling in the case of Gitxaała v.

This is a detailed analysis of the case – stay tuned for a shorter summary coming soon

In the next installments of our Indigenous law in language blog series, we wanted to talk with some scientists to see how we can begin to bridge the languages of western and Indigenous science together.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (the “UN Declaration”) recognizes that Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination and to revitalize, use, develop, and transmit to future generati

Spring is usually a beautiful, vibrant time in the Fraser River Estuary, but this year it also brought the dark cloud of federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s approval of the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (T2) expansion project.

On June 23, in the middle of what is expected to be the busiest cruise ship season ever on the west coast, Canada finally announced a

Fish were once so abundant in BC waters that Indigenous elders remember dried salmon being stacked like firewood behind the stove, and the sound of herring at night so loud you could mistake it for rainfall. But declines on the BC coast have accelerated over the last century, with marine wildlife cut in half in just four decades.  

The hearing of Gitxaała Nation’s ground-breaking case challenging the provincial government’s “free entry” mineral claim staking regime

The Human Rights Commissioner intervened in the Gitxaala Nation and Ehattesaht First Nation's cases challenging the Province's registration of mineral claims on their territories with no prior consultation. As an intervenor, her role was to assist the court and is independent from the parties.

From the point of view of Justice Church of the BC Supreme Court, it was probably pretty clear that the protesters blocking construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline across Northern BC were breaking the law.