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

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. 

A law student’s perspective of TWN’s announcement that it has denied approval of Kinder Morgan to proceed through in its territory.

On May 26, 2015 British Columbia’s Auditor General Carol Bellringer released her report on “Managing the Cumulative Effects of Natural Resource Development in BC.”  The report found that the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natu

Politics should not be permitted to trump the integrity of our food security.

Developing country negotiators at the UN Climate Conference in Bonn, supported by environmental organizations, have declared today to be Loss and Damages Day – focusing on the need to rapidly reduce the world’s greenhouse gas emissions to avoid even more loss and damages than we’re suffering already and on the need for a robust loss and damages

Talia McKenzie first found out that she was going to be living next to a gravel pit the day she picked up the keys to her new home in the Cowichan Valley.

Canada is not a super-power.  We’re geographically large, but small in terms of population.  And when it comes to climate change we’re used to hearing politicians say that we’re “only” responsible for about 2% of the world’s greenhouse gas em

Meaningful public participation is a backbone of environmental assessment. Without it, project reviews can become a closed-door rubber stamp, vulnerable to manipulation by proponents, governments, or any stakeholder with an agenda and a seat at the table.

(May 26, 2015 Correction: The reference to PRV as a "disease" in the section marked "The precautionary principle" has been corrected to "disease agent." Thank you to reader John Segal for pointing out the error.)