Some of the strongest legal challenges against the federally approved Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline come from B.C.’s First Nations and supporters from across B.C. are digging into their pockets to help ensure those are a success.

Pull Together, a grassroots campaign to raise funds for the legal challenges of six First Nations, has been so successful organizers are bumping their goal from $250,000 up to $300,000 by December 31.

On Thursday the Haidi Nation announced they would join the initiative alongside the Gitxaala, Heiltsuk, Kitaxoo/Xai’xias, Nadleh Whut’en and Nak’azdli Nations to carry legal challenges forward against Enbridge’s project.

“The Pull Together campaign is driven by people who care and are politically astute,” said kil tlaats ‘gaa Peter Lantin, President of the Haida Nation. “They can see how the future of the country is shaping up and want to be part of it.”

Chief Marilyn Slett of the Heiltsuk Tribal Council said the fight against the Northern Gateway is a “global issue.”

“It’s an issue that we all should be standing up to protect the land and the sea, we have that responsibility as human beings.”

First Nations lead legal challenge against Northern Gateway

First Nations hold unique constitutional powers in Canada and assert Canada’s “duty to consult and accommodate” leaves individual nations with the ultimate decision-making power over resource projects on traditional territories.

Since 2010 over 100 First Nations have signed the Save the Fraser Declaration, an indigenous-law based agreement definitively banning oil pipelines and tankers in their territories. In 2010 nine coastal First Nations signed the Coastal First Nations Declaration that pledged “oil tankers carrying crude oil from the Alberta Tar Sands will not be allows to transit our lands and waters.”

According to a legal analysis performed by West Coast Environmental Law, B.C.’s First Nations “have the right to issue a ban on oil pipelines and crude oil tankers in their territories, based in their own ancestral laws, in Canadian constitutional law, and in international law.”

At least nine legal challenges have been launched by First Nations to stop the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline from being built. After the federal government approved the pipeline, a large group of First Nations, Councils and Assemblies launched a joint federal suit announcing,  “we will defend our territories whatever the cost may be.”

While some have criticized these legal arguments as tenuous, a historic decision in the June 2014 Williams Case for the first time acknowledged a local First Nation, the Tsilhqot’in, has legal title to their traditional territories. This sets a legal precedent for other First Nations to make similar claims to legal rights and title over their lands.

Under the Tsilhqot’in decision, economic development can still proceed on traditional territories with local First Nations’ consent or where the government can demonstrate that development is pressing and substantial.

As part of its pre-construction conditions Enbridge must prove it adequately consulted with all potentially affected First Nations and that it has plans in place to mitigate or repair any damage caused by the construction and operation of a pipeline on traditional lands.

Individuals, businesses, faith groups get behind B.C.’s First Nations

Over 30 businesses and more than 1,000 individual donors have come together in more than 100 online fundraisers to help Pull Together, an initiative of the Sierra Club BC and Victoria-based legal defense fund RAVEN, work towards its goal.

“British Columbians do not want First Nations to stand alone against Enbridge and they’re demonstrating this with passion, creativity and their wallets,” said Sierra Club BC campaigns director Caitlyn Vernon. “It’s incredible to think that Pull Together began in the summer with a community group in Terrace raising $2,000, and now we have raised a hundred times that.”

SumofUs.org, a global corporate watchdog and advocacy group, raised more than $40,000 for Pull Together and Heiltsuk councilor, Jess Housty, contributed over $5,700 from funds her and her husband raised at their October 18th wedding.

Moksha yoga studios are also participating in a “Stretch Across B.C. Challenge” which has raised $8,500 from participating studios across the province. The community of Pender Island raised over $4,000 by hosting a local concert and the United Church of Canada pledged to fundraise from its congregations throughout the month of November.  

Susan Smitten, executive director of RAVEN said financing legal challenges against the pipeline is a “an extensive, costly legal process.”

“The next stage involves gathering all of the evidence required for the Nations to make their cases at Court,” she said.

“While the Nations are committed to going it alone, standing together and pooling resources with all British Columbians ensures equal access to justice and a successful outcome with much more likelihood of success.”

Image Credit: Mandy Nahanee speaking at The Answer is Still NO!, a public rally in response to the Northern Gateway federal approval. Photo by Zack Embree.

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This week the federal government was legally obligated to establish protected habitat for threatened North Pacific humpback whales. Instead the Harper government suddenly moved to take the humpback off the “threatened species” list. That would eliminate the legal requirement under Canada’s Species At Risk Act for protecting habitat along the British Columbia coast.

The government based the downgrade on a recommendation made by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), the independent scientific body that designates which wildlife species are in trouble, in 2011.

Critics have noted the decision eliminates a major obstacle to both the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. After the conditional approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline by the National Energy Board's joint review panel, the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre launched a legal complaint on behalf of B.C. Nature requesting the government's recovery strategy for humpback whales be taken into consideration.

A federal recovery strategy for humpback whales on the B.C. coast released in October cited potential increased oil tanker traffic as a danger to dwindling populations. The recovery strategy, released after a five-year delay, also noted the danger toxic spills posed to critical habitat.

If built, the two pipeline projects would increase oil tanker traffic from eight to 28 per month, increasing the risks of collisions with whales, potential spills in vital habitat and excessive noise.

The good news is that the North Pacific humpbacks are recovering after nearly being wiped out by whale hunting, Marty Leonard, chair of COSEWIC, told DeSmog Canada.

The whales were listed as a species of “special concern” back in 2011, Leonard said. “Their numbers are increasing which is good to see. But they still face threats.”

Those threats include oil spills, collisions with ships, entanglement in fishing gear and overfishing of their food sources.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest feature on the planet — bigger than all land areas combined. After 250 years of whaling, an estimated 1,400 humpbacks remained in the North Pacific. They’re among the largest marine mammals reaching 14 metres in length and weighing up to 40 tonnes. Hunting was banned in 1965 and today there are about 20,000 in the entire region. Perhaps 3,000 are found seasonally in B.C. waters.

The Species At Risk Act took affect in 2003, prior to which Canada had little endangered species protection.

In 2005, COSEWIC listed North Pacific humpbacks as a “threatened” species. COSEWIC defines “threatened” as a species likely to become endangered if nothing is done. “Endangered” means about to go extinct. The government’s move will demote the status of humpbacks to “species of special concern.”

The federal government is required to produce an official “recovery strategy” for all species on the endangered and threatened lists, including legal protection of essential habitat.

Despite its legal obligation, the Harper government has persistently failed to do so for humpbacks and another 170 species.

In September 2012, Ecojustice lawyers filed a lawsuit in response to the Harper government’s delay on behalf of five environmental groups, the David Suzuki Foundation, Greenpeace Canada, Sierra Club BC, Wilderness Committee and Wildsight.

In February 2014, the Federal Court ruled the Harper government was breaking the law and was very critical of the government’s delay.

“We took the federal government to court and won,” said Caitlyn Vernon of the Sierra Club BC. 

“There is clearly an enormous systemic problem within the relevant Ministries,” Justice Anne L. Mactavish wrote in her judgment.

Justice Mactavish also noted that when it comes to protecting species, delay can lead to extinction.

The lawsuit prompted the Federal government to develop a recovery strategy for North Pacific humpbacks in September 2013, eight years after being listed as threatened.

The recovery strategy required legal protection of designated feeding grounds to be in place by this week, Vernon told DeSmog.

But rather than implement such protections, the government moved to downgrade the status of the whales to eliminate the need for legal protection of habitat.

“It’s good news humpback numbers are increasing, but their recovery is fragile. The science is clear that increased tanker traffic from the proposed pipelines will affect that recovery,” said Vernon.

“One oil spill and they’re back on the endangered species list.”

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This is a guest post by Caitlyn Vernon and Torrance Coste.

The February 25th headline, “10 million scallops are dead; company lays off staff,” hit British Columbians like a punch in the stomach. The shellfish industry has been an economic powerhouse on central Vancouver Island for decades, providing hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue every year – over $30 million in average wholesale value. 

But when we talk about shellfish, we aren’t just talking jobs and economics. We are talking about food. Shellfish harvesting is one of our most robust local food systems, and the prospect of losing this industry makes us all feel, quite frankly, a little hungry.

Of the possible causes of the recent scallop die-off, ocean acidification seems the most likely. Ocean acidification is directly connected to climate change and to our runaway consumption of fossil fuels. In short, acidification occurs when carbon is absorbed into the ocean from the atmosphere, making the water more acidic. Acidification strips the ocean of carbonate ions, which marine species like scallops and oysters need to build their shells, therefore reducing the ability of these species to survive.

For years, groups like the B.C. Shellfish Growers Association have been raising the alarm about the verified threat of acidification to the shellfish industry.

Roberta Stevenson, the Association’s Executive Director, told us that the public and our elected decision-makers need to understand how serious the situation is for shellfish growers on B.C.’s coast. She said the significant economic benefits the industry provides could disappear if we don’t start to see the health of the oceans as an economic priority.

A major source of atmospheric carbon is the burning of fossil fuels: oil, coal, and gas. Here in B.C., we have a stake in important decisions over whether or not to build fossil fuel export infrastructure. The proposed Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines, the prospective B.C. LNG industry, and the proposed Raven Coal Mine will all put much more carbon into the atmosphere, further acidifying the ocean and directly threatening the survival of shellfish species and coastal communities.

All these proposed projects need our consent. It’s important that we make the right choices and get on a path to a low-carbon future.

The recent scallop die-off is a clear illustration of what we will face if we don’t act now to reduce our carbon emissions. Climate change and ocean acidification will continue to have devastating consequences; not just for coastal economies, communities, and families, but for anyone who depends on the ocean as a source of food.

What’s more, coal, oil, and gas are finite resources, guaranteed to go bust when they run out, become too expensive, or when the environmental impacts are deemed not worth the risk. Any financial benefits we gain from extracting and exporting them will one day disappear completely. We will be left with the socio-economic hardship and lingering environmental problems well-known to many communities where boom-bust extractive industries have run their course.

By continuing to promote the extraction and export of coal, tar sands, and fracked gas instead of sustainable sectors in B.C., our government is making a political choice to prioritize short-term profits over renewable industries that can provide economic stability and contribute to viable, healthy communities over the long term.

We all deserve good jobs that don’t destroy our children’s future. For the sake of these shellfish and the families that depend on them, let’s work together to develop a smart and creative strategy to transition away from fossil fuels and toward a low carbon economy – with meaningful jobs in sustainable industries that don’t compromise ecosystems. A healthy coast is one with abundant food that can still be pulled from the ocean, as it always has been.

If we keep pumping carbon into our atmosphere we’re investing in an acidic ocean for decades if not centuries to come, and we’re forsaking the sustainable shellfish industry and the communities, businesses, and jobs it supports.

Caitlyn Vernon is Campaigns Director for Sierra Club B.C. Find her on twitter: @caitlynvernon. Torrance Coste is Vancouver Island Campaigner for the Wilderness Committee. Find him on twitter: @TorranceCoste.

This article originally appeared in the Times Colonist. Reprinted with permission.

Image Credit: The Scallop by 5k1nnyt1g3r via flickr.

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