Tag Archives: Gov of BC

Making rural island roads safer: Island advocates argue for community control

CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca

During a community transportation webinar event hosted by the organization “Transition Salt Spring” last week, some island residents advocated for more community management of rural roads.

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Logging company’s deferrals of old-growth jewels bittersweet, environmentalists say

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

West Coast environmental organizations are cautiously optimistic after a large forestry company announced deferrals of old-growth logging in some prized conservation areas in its private land holdings on Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii. 

Mosaic Forest Management, the largest private land-holder in B.C., is pausing logging on 400 square kilometres of forest for a minimum of 25 years, opting instead to rely on carbon credits to generate revenue. 

Continue reading Logging company’s deferrals of old-growth jewels bittersweet, environmentalists say

B.C. Scapegoats Wolf Population, Blaming Them For The Caribou Decline

By Jacob Cardinal, Alberta Native News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(ANNews) – In January of this year, B.C announced the extension of its controversial wolf reduction program for another five years and is set to target the Kootenay, Cariboo, Omineca, Skeena and Peace regions of the province.

Continue reading B.C. Scapegoats Wolf Population, Blaming Them For The Caribou Decline

B.C.’s largest fossil fuel subsidy cost the province over $1B last year

By Cloe Logan, National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A B.C. program that has been referred to as a “tax loophole for fracking operators” cost the province $1.162 billion in royalty revenues last year.

That’s according to a Stand.earth analysis of the province’s 2021-22 budget. Sven Biggs, the organization’s Canadian oil and gas program director, said the money lost through the Deep Well Royalty Credit program represents a broken promise from the provincial government.

Continue reading B.C.’s largest fossil fuel subsidy cost the province over $1B last year

The Ugly Side of “Beautiful Fish”

Traditional territory of both the Tlowitsis First Nation (who support fish farming) and Ma’a̱mtagila Nation (who are against it)

By Desiree Mannila, originally published on the Watershed Sentinel

A proposal for five new fish farms off the north coast of Vancouver Island has sparked disappointment for ocean protectors who achieved the phase-out of seventeen fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago in 2019. The farms are being proposed by John Smith from Tlowitsis First Nation, in partnership with Grieg Seafood. Smith is attempting to rezone the Chatham Chanel to allow these farms.

The proposal is in direct opposition to the work that wild fish advocates have done to remove the farms from their territories. Decades of work has resulted in the federal government committing to creating a phase out plan by 2025, as well as a promise from the Government of British Columbia to establish rigorous new rules for renewals of salmon farm tenures in BC waters past 2022. The proposal is a shock to the 102 Indigenous communities that signed a petition in 2019 demanding farms be removed from their territories.

Continue reading The Ugly Side of “Beautiful Fish”