ConservationNEXT

Sierra Club of British Columbia

Website
http://www.sierraclub.bc.ca
Contact Name
Sarah Cox
Contact Email
sarah@antispamsierraclub.bc.ca
Location
Victoria, BC

Sierra Club BC is a non-profit environmental organization whose mission is to protect and restore British Columbia’s rich tapestry of species and ecosystems. We have been a leader in many successful campaigns to protect forests and wilderness, including the Great Bear Rainforest, Clayoquot Sound, South Moresby, the Khutzeymateen and  Carmanah Valley. 

Conservation Alliance helps fund our Flathead River Valley campaign, which seeks to protect a globally-significant wilderness in the southeast corner of B.C. The Flathead adjoins Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, a World Heritage Site and UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

The Flathead, compared to Africa's Serengeti for its richness of species, is under threat from a proposal for mountain-top removal coal mining and other energy and mining development. If the coal mine is approved by the B.C. government, the US Department of the Interior says heavy metals and other contaminants will reach the US border and Glacier National Park in less than 24 hours through the Flathead River.

The Flathead has the highest density of grizzly bears in the interior of North America, and the highest density and diversity of carnivores on the continent. Water in the Flathead River is so pure that scientists use it as a benchmark by which to measure water quality in rivers around the world.

Sierra Club BC and 10 other US and Canadian conservation groups petitioned the World Heritage Committee last year to declare Waterton-Glacier a World Heritage Site in Danger due to the proposed Flathead coal mine and other threats. In June 2009 the committee voted unanimously to send a delegation to investigate. The final report will be made available at the end of July 2010 during their sessions in Brasilia, Brazil. Learn more at www.sierraclub.bc.ca.

We aim to protect the lower one-third of the Flathead River Valley as a National Park and to establish a Wildlife Management Area in the rest of the valley and adjoining habitat.

We share our Conservation Alliance funds with three other organizations involved in the Flathead campaign: Wildsight, Headwaters Montana and the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.

 

Project Update

This week, as the World Heritage Committee gets set to release its report on the Flathead River Valley, Sierra Club BC and partners are calling attention to impending plans for clear-cut logging, quarrying and other threats to this lush valley.

"We're alarmed that it's business as usual in the Flathead, with the exception of large-scale mining and energy development," said Sierra Club BC spokesperson Sarah Cox.

Read our press release.

These threats are pressing. A B.C. company is poised to clear-cut log in the Flathead this summer. Tembec plans to remove almost 500,000 cubic metres of timber along the river in the upper Flathead and in the proposed national park expansion area in the lower Flathead.

At the same time, the B.C. government has granted a permit to another company to mine 20,000 tonnes of Flathead rock, without environmental oversight, near the Waterton-Glacier World Heritage Site.

At the regional scale, two new coal strip mines in the adjoining Elk Valley and new coal exploration in the proposed Wildlife Management Area also pose a serious threat to wildlife connectivity. Learn more about current threats to the Flathead.

The World Heritage Committee meets July 23 to August 3 in Brasilia, Brazil. During that time the committee will release a long-awaited report from a September 2009 mission to the Flathead. 

The report comes after Sierra Club BC and 10 other U.S. and Canadian conservation groups successfully petitioned the World Heritage Committee in June 2008. Our petition was heard in June 2009 and the committee voted unanimously to send a mission to the Flathead to investigate threats posed to the adjacent Waterton-Glacier World Heritage Site by B.C.'s land use plan for the Flathead.

We are hopeful that the World Heritage mission report will recommend a comprehensive transboundary wildlife management plan that would protect the Flathead and adjoining habitat.