Shell's Bad Gas Plan for the Sacred Headwaters
December 2008 Update
On December 5, 2008 Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Richard Neufeld announced that Shell Canada and the Tahltan First Nation reached agreement on a two-year moratorium on coalbed methane drilling in the Klappan area. We commend our government for making a good decision and allowing for proper consultation and information. We thank all of those people who helped with this fight and in particular the Iskut elders who stood up against the big industrial giant, Shell, back in 2004.
For now, this area is safe from exploration and degradation. We still need your help… please remind Shell and our government that the Klappan, known as the Sacred Headwaters is not the place for coalbed methane explorations. The risks are too great and our wildlife, wild salmon and wilderness for future generations is at stake.
Help us save the Sacred Headwaters and Spatsizi Wilderness Park
In Northern British Columbia lies a stunning valley known to the First Nations as the Sacred Headwaters. Situated along the southwest edge of Spatsizi, this pristine alpine basin feeds the tributary river systems leading to three major salmon rivers: the Stikine, Skeena and Nass.
This is a vast, mountainous landscape rich in wildlife, forests and meadows. Against the wishes of the First Nations, the BC government has opened the Sacred Headwaters to industrial development and granted Royal Dutch Shell tenure to extract coalbed methane gas across an area of close to a million acres.
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Why must we stop Shell's proposal?
- This area supports important spring calving grounds for the blue-listed mountain caribou and is a summer range for cow/calf caribou herds. Other important large mammals such as Stone sheep, mountain goat, grizzly bear, moose and wild salmon cohabit within this ecosystem.
- Three of British Columbia’s greatest salmon rivers find their source at the Sacred Headwaters. The Skeena salmon fishery alone is worth $110 million per year. There is no place where coalbed methane extraction and salmon co-exist.
- The headwaters of the Spatsizi and Stikine rivers originate in the Sacred Headwaters and all released aquatic and airborne contaminants will enter into Spatsizi Wilderness Park, threatening the Park’s ecology.
- Coalbed methane development is a highly invasive process and has a bad track record in North America: polluting water supplies, fragmenting remote landscapes, and leaving the land transformed and desecrated.
- The people of the Sacred Headwaters, the men and women of the Iskut First Nation, “The Tlogotine”, oppose the project. They rely on this land for hunting, trapping, cultural, spiritual and educational values.
Where things stand:
- In 2004 the BC government granted Shell Canada tenure for coalbed methane extraction in the Sacred Headwaters (Klappan). Shell drilled 3 exploration wells.
- Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s second-largest corporation, took full control of Shell Canada in June 2007, inheriting the coalbed methane tenure.
- Elders and community members of the Iskut First Nation strongly oppose the project.
- In December 2008, the BC government announced a tw0-year moratorium on coalbed methane exploration and development in the Sacred Headwaters
What Can You Do?
We believe opposition to Royal Dutch Shell coalbed methane tenure, regionally, provincially and worldwide will have an impact.
- Get educated: View the comprehensive website www.skeenawatershed.com and sign up for the Sacred Headwaters witness team, and use the action centre link to send an instant email to Premier Gordon Campbell and Royal Dutch Shell.
- Write a personal letter to Premier Gordon Campbell opposing Shell’s Klappan project in the Sacred Headwaters: Premier Gordon Campbell PO Box 9041, Stn Prov Gov’t, Victoria, BC V8W 9E1
- Write or email Royal Dutch Shell and demand they terminate their Sacred Headwaters Klappan project: questions@shell.ca
- Send an action alert to your email lists and direct people to www.skeenawatershed.com