Spirit in Action
Tar Sands vs Spirit Bear - Fighting the Northern Gateway Pipeline
One of the multiple pipelines proposed to carry tar sands out of Canada is the Northern Gateway Pipeline. It would go through North America's only remaining temperate rain forest and a refuge with exceptional and threatened wildlife, including the Spirit Bear.
- Duration:
- 55m
- Broadcast on:
- 16 Nov 2014
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] Let us sing this song for the healing of the world That we may hear as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing [music] Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpes Me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world That we may dream as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along You've most likely heard about, and we've had several programs on, the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline But probably fewer of you have learned much about Enbridge's possible Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline Scheduled to go from Alberta, Canada, west through British Columbia And the Great Bear Rainforest, home to the Spirit Bear And a number of rare and exceptional species of animals and plants Today for Spirit in Action, we'll learn from three guests of the urgent reasons for protecting this natural gem At the end, we'll listen to Takaya Blaney, an inspirational young woman Well, actually, she's just become a teenager Of the slimen First Nations tribe, as she sings for this region Second up, we'll be Elizabeth Shope of the National Resources Defense Council Test specifically with advocating for the bio gems threatened by the tar sands, mining and pipelines But right now, we're going to welcome back Jim Bacchus, Nature photographer and author of many photographic books Including Spirit Bears of the Great Rainforest of British Columbia If you've got internet access, you could also watch the PowerPoint slideshow we've created to go with our interview with Jim Just click on the link on northernspiritradio.org Jim Bacchus joins us in person today in Eau Claire, Wisconsin Slide 2 Jim, thanks for again joining me for Spirit in Action Thank you and good morning When I heard about the Northern Gateway pipeline, I knew I had to talk to you Since you'd actually been to the site where this is going to be going through if it comes true Tell us about the Great Bear Rainforest in your experience I've made five different trips up there as a photographer It covers about 250 miles of shoreline in British Columbia And it's the last temperate rainforest in North America Because of this, there's a lot of endangered animals up there Particularly the Spirit Bear or Commodie Slide 3 That's my primary reason for going up there and photographing is for that animal And it's deep fjords Beautiful country trees that are over a thousand years old Animals live pretty much free of humans There's only one small First Nation village up there in beautiful country I'll mention to our listeners that we are putting slides of this up on my website, northernspiritradio.org You go to that website and you can follow along in the slideshow That will give you some hint of some of the beauty that's up there Jim has captured an awful lot of it with his camera And you said, Jim, you've made five trips up there Not anybody can just go, it's pretty limited who gets to go in or how many people get to go in, isn't it? It's limited more financially than it is by anything else Because there's only two ways to get there and that's either by air in a seaplane or by boat Slide 4 I go on a sailboat when I go up there a 71 foot sailboat and travel in the area Like I said, my primary reason is to photograph the spirit bear Which is an endangered animal, we should leave it alone There's only two to three hundred in the world of the spirit bear in a radius of about 250 miles Slide 5 To give you some idea what 250 to 300 animals left in the world are The panda that we hear so much about, there's 1500 pandas left The spirit bear, there's only 300, let's say The mountain gorilla, which is one of the most endangered animals in the world Is got 900 of them left So there's three times as many mountain gorillas as there are spirit bears And here we run around a pipeline in the middle of this beautiful country All we would have to do is run that pipeline 400 miles south in the Vancouver That already has terminals to handle this Let's talk about some of those details You say that you've gone in on a boat to get there If you're looking at the PowerPoint presentation, you can see a map of the area And the area into which Jim has gone to take pictures of all the wildlife And of the countryside, it's a pretty impressive area If the northern gateway pipeline were approved And it was delivering the tar sands to this area The ships are going to be taking it out through what you've called fjords in the past Talk about that area, so when you go in you go up these fjords, is that how you get to this place? Slide 7 We go along the coastline and these fjords run in from the coastline And if you look at the map, there's all kinds of islands Princess Royal Island, for instance, is about 100 miles long So we're not talking on a small island And these fjords are narrow and long rock walls on the side of them I've gone up some of these different fjords to photograph grizzly bears and the spirit bear And I've been on the islands where the spirit bears are Like I said, there's one First Nation village up there of about 60 families And that's it for people up there, besides visitors like me that go in there I fly in to Bella Bella and then get on the sailboat and go up there And photograph 20 different bears, so I photograph 8 to 10% of the population of the endangered spirit bear To me, is it worth trying to damage their environment? Because sooner or later, there's going to be a tanker that will run aground And spill crude all over that area and destroy it And it's such an environment that we can't let this happen You even got an award recently, Jim, for an article that you wrote about the spirit bear What was that award? The Elmore Chatham Award through the Photography Society of America They published a monthly journal and I got an award for writing the best feature article for the magazine And it was on photographing this spirit bear in British Columbia and the Great Bear Rainforest It told how to do it, where to go, and had photographs of my animals So I'm pretty proud of that award A number of the people who are promoting this tar sands shipment through this area Kind of poo-poo the idea that a ship's going to go aground Of course, we all know what happened with Exxon Valdez But even in this area, in the August 2011 National Geographic magazine They talk about one of the boats that went aground in this area, that sank in this area Do you know about that? Yeah, it actually sank about three miles from where I photographed a lot of the spirit bears And it was a ferry that ran aground that's been going up and down this same channel for 40 years And it ran aground one evening, sunk the ship and killed a few people And if that can happen with a ship that knows the waters perfectly well It's not carrying the immense weight that a freighter would be carrying, that the oil tanker would be carrying It sounds like it's an environment that is dangerous, that the environment is going to be endangered by these tankers Can you see any way that it could be done safely? No, where they want to do this is up such a long narrow fjord It's just an accident waiting to happen The simplest way is to run that pipeline 450 miles south into Vancouver The only difference you got down there is you got more ship traffic And I think that's why they want to run it into the Great Bear Rainforest But why would you do that to a land that's perfect? You mentioned something that I hadn't heard before That they tried to make a deal, that is to say that the pipeline company tried to make a deal with the First Nations people there To get their approval, to get them to buy into this idea What did you hear about that? I heard they were offered over a million dollars per family And the native First Nations people turned them down and said no, we don't want money, we want our land And we want to keep it beautiful and pristine like it is So that means more to them than the almighty dollar You photograph much more than just the commodity bears, more than the spirit bears when you're up there You photograph all kinds of wildlife Any particular ones that have been striking to you are particularly interesting, different than other places that you photograph You've got how many books out now? 13 books, but I've got two books on this area I've got a 140 page coffee table book on the Great Bear Rainforest And then I have a children's book that co-authored with a lady And it's no fun being last and it talks about the endangered animals in the spirit bear Those are the two primary ones, that's a children's book like I said And so some of the other animals up there that you photograph that are particularly precious to you from your experience It's like age The grizzly bears, I photograph a number of different grizzly bears Humpback whales, there's all kinds of bird life, eagles, ducks, other small animals It's like nine The Pine Martin, we photograph that where we're photographing the spirit bear Because the spirit bears on a river eatin' salmon And if the salmon are in big numbers in these streams The barrel eat the eggs It's like ten And usually the brain and you'll drop the rest of the fish in the water And then the other animals will come in The Pine Martin comes in and cleans up what the bear didn't eat Eagles the same way, hawks will come in And then we've got a wolf up there Slide 11 The coastal gray wolf is a little bit different than ours If you look at them, they're taller, longer-legged, they swim, they enjoy the water And they eat fish, and our gray wolves don't like water They don't like to eat fish, they will if they have to There's a whole ecosystem up there, they've even tracked the salmon DNA Up into the top of some of the cedar trees where birds have dropped it And it's gone into the ecosystem and gone into the trees And they found it in cedar trees at the very top of the DNA sample from the fish And this is a protected area that is to say that They don't log these trees, they don't selectively cut them or anything like that What kind of trees are there? There's thousand-year-old cedar trees, there's some big red pines up in there Most of it is pine trees that have grown up in there Slide 12 As far as logging, there's some of it that they can log And they're trying to get that controlled I think there's a million acres that's protected now But they're still like two and a half million acres, they want to close to logging But once again, it's the almighty dollar that drives it You mentioned a tree that's a thousand years old, I'm trying to picture what a thousand-year-old tree looks like So maybe we'll put up a slide right here of that tree What's that hole within the tree? Is it just hollowed out? Does that mean it's going to die? No, that's a bear den And a barrel hibernated in there in the wintertime And that tree is about eight feet across at its base, they're huge And we don't want to destroy these anymore and we do the spirit bear Slide 13 You mentioned the humpback whales that are there, so you obviously do some of your photography Out on the water as well as on the land You say there's a lot of humpback whales, I mean we could see a couple of tails right in this photo Are they in any way endangered? Are they in any way threatened? I'm pretty sure if there were tar sands spill in this area They wouldn't be able to survive anymore, they would destroy their environment That's right, all our whales are protected now We learned a long time ago that we need to protect these And we didn't need the oil off for lamps, we figured out something else If we had an oil spill there, the whales would move out, they'd be gone Just like they did in Alaska In all the bird wildlife would be affected by it, the trees, I mean it would destroy the area We've got some pictures here that you took of some of the bears And it looks like you're up pretty close, I mean, or is this just a good telephoto lens? Slide 13 No, I've been relatively close to some of the bears They're worried about the salmon and eating and not me And I've been 20, 30 feet from a bear, with no worry Like I said, they're worried about eating, I don't carry a gun I have a guide with me that carries pepper spray He's never used it in the 28 years he's been doing this Do you carry defense as well? I mean, if they were coming after you, what would you do? No, I don't carry any defense I've never been threatened, I've been doing it for over 10 years, 12 years And it never felt endangered Either by grizzly bears or the spirit bear The spirit bear is a black bear with a recess of gene and went out every 10 up there, born white And why it's only in that area, nobody knows Indian legend says that they're God, the raven After the ice age said that he wanted something to remember The ice age buys, so he made the spirit bear And he said it'd live in a land where there would be no inhabitants on an island And that's what's happened There's no inhabitants on Princess Royal Island, on Gribble Island Any of the islands up there This bear has existed for hundreds of years Let's hope that it continues for hundreds of years Give me some more of the detail of how it works out when you go up there I'm pretty sure there's no holiday ends up there for you to stay in So where do people lodge? What's the infrastructure? How do you keep from being polluting influences yourself when you go up there? Slide 15 We live on this 71 foot sailboat and anybody that goes up there Usually goes with somebody like I'm with So everything's self-contained And what we do is go in in the morning, we anchor the boat in a bay And then go in a rubber boat called a zodiac And go in and then we hike about a mile up into the island along this stream And we use an Indian guide, a First Nation guide out of Hatley Bay Marvin Robinson's his name He'll take you up there and he's lived his whole life with the bears And stays with you all day while you're photographing Slide 16 And then at night we'll go back to the boat and either travel to a different area Or stay overnight there and go in the following day We do all our eating on the boat except for a sack lunch to go up for the day into the island And a lot of the photographing that we do is like the whales as well We're going from one site to another off the boat You can see so much off there and then we'll go into different areas Where there's grizzly bears because the two bears don't get along So they stay away from each other So you pack your lunch and never tempt it to grab some of the leftover salmon that the bears left behind No, it doesn't look real good after they get done with it But it's amazing, you know, you can tell from what's left there on the ground If the fish is missing its belly where the eggs will be in the back of its head It's a bear that ate it And then the wolf will come in and he'll eat the head off the salmon and leave the rest of it lay And then the other animals will come in and pick it apart But if there's a shortage of salmon that the bear will eat it 100% or just about Then all the animals are fighting for food But the salmon will rise up there and the count is going up Let's hope it continues Do you have much contact with the First Nations people, what we call Native Americans in the US? Do you have much contact with First Nations people when you're up there? Do you think you have a real sense of what their opinions are? Or is it only through the press that you know about this? No, I've spent some time at Hadley Bay Because I've flown in there in a float plane and out of there and met the sailboat And I've spent two or three nights in there sleeping And I actually was lucky enough to go to one of their town meetings one evening It's quite an experience, it's clean They enjoy life and they make their living off fishing and hunting If we destroy that, they're going to have to move, they're going to be gone I'm kind of amazed at all the photography that you do and all the books that you're churning out It seems like every few months you turn on another one And so what's coming up, photography, the beautiful places that you're capturing That you're passing on through your books I picked up the proof from the printer this morning, it's on the grasslands of Wisconsin And it's a little history on our grasslands and the different type of grasslands there are And then some of the spots you can go visit in Wisconsin What we have in Wisconsin and a lot of people don't realize it is the first restored prairie in the United States Which was in Madison, Wisconsin and all the Leopold was involved at the Arboretum at the University And there's pictures of that and there also And I've done a lot of work in Nacita Wildlife Refuge I've got a book out on that They're all available on my website or you can email me I've got two different websites MagooPhoto.com is my first website and then from there you can link in to my other one in the upper right corner There's a place to click and it'll link you to the other website that I have There's about 3,000 photos on these two websites And like I said, everything's available in print You can get a hold of me through my website by emailing me So do check out MagooPhoto.com Check out some of the books The Spirit Bear Book is sitting in my house for perusal and people come by and get to see The amazing photographer, the amazing bit of creation that Jim catches through his photography Jim, thank you so much for doing this work Raising our environmental IQ and for joining me today for Spirit in Action Thank you Mark for having me, I appreciate it Slide 19 That was Nature Photographer and Author Jim Bacchus See more of his photos and books by visiting magoophoto.com Before we go on to our other guests, I want to remind you that you're listening to Spirit in Action A northern spirit radio production on the web at northernspiritradio.org Into our tenth year of programs, all on the web for free listening and download Along with further info about and links to our guests There's a place for comments, add yours when you visit and make our communication two-way And there is a donate button and your donation is crucial for the continuation Of this full-time work aimed at healing the world and empowering others who do that work But even more than supporting northern spirit radio I'd love it if you'd start by supporting your local community radio station Bringing to our cities and towns a slice of music and news that is nowhere else on the American radio dial So start by helping them with your hands and wallet But on to our second guest dressing tar sands pipelines including the one proposed to cut Through the Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia It's named the northern gateway pipeline And as advocate for the international program of the Natural Resources Defense Council Elizabeth Shope is tasked with fighting to preserve the biogems threatened by tar sands exploitation Elizabeth Shope joins us by phone from Washington DC Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining me for Spirit in Action Thanks for having me Now let's be clear, your position is as advocate of the international program of the Natural Resources Defense Council Tell me about your position because I want to see how this dovetails with the work about tar sands Yeah, well like you said, I am an advocate in the international program at the Natural Resources Defense Council For the last five years has been fighting tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada As well as tar sands pipelines that could go to the west coast, to the east coast, to the Gulf coast And advocating for policies that will keep tar sands in the ground What is your advocacy in particular? What are you doing? And how's an advocate different from other positions within NRDC? Well, as an advocate, I am a bit of a jack-of-all-trades And so I do a lot of research and writing and also direct advocacy with government officials And have been working yet every means possible to keep the dirty tar sands in the ground Well let's talk about specifically why it's important to keep tar sands in the ground We're going to talk very soon about the Great Bear Rainforest and the pipeline proposed through there But let's start at the source tar sands, why do we want to keep them in the ground? So beneath the boreal forest in Alberta, Canada, there is an area about the size of Florida that contains tar sands It's a very heavy hydrocarbon called disman that is in these tar sands deposits And big oil companies are decimating the boreal forest in order to extract the tar sands and turn it into oil Right now, there's about 2 million barrels per day of tar sands that are being extracted from beneath the boreal forest Tar sands are problematic because they are incredibly carbon-intensive And additionally, extracting tar sands is causing an incredible amount of air and water pollution Which is traveling downstream and affecting the health of first nations downstream from tar sands to posit Tar sands is really just a lose-lose-lose It's bad where it's extracted, it is problematic to transport it via pipeline because these pipelines can rupture And refining tar sands is also an incredibly polluting business And so there's an extra measure of pollution in tar sands compared to petroleum resources that we normally get when we're taking oil out of the earth Is that true? And to what degree? How much worse are we talking about? The continent in tar sands is incredibly heavy, so extracting it actually, the whole process of extracting through combusting tar sands Because of 17% more greenhouse gas emissions than doing sales for conventional fuels That means that we're going backwards at a time when we really need to be turning towards clean energy I'm wondering some other things about tar sands Now back when I was in high school and college, I was in debate and forensics And a couple different times topic was environmental And that was the time of the oil embargoes from the Middle East And so there was all of a sudden this oil and gasoline shortage here in the United States And a number of people in their plans for the debate topic would include that what we have to do is shale oil and tar sands That kind of thing that we had to draw on those resources and that would solve our shortage So I know from that point of view, and that was 40 years ago I'm talking about That some of the people's concern was we need energy independence because that protects us from things like terrorism or international blackmail Do you get those arguments back at you and how important is that at this point in time? Energy independence is absolutely critical The thing is that achieving energy independence is something we need to do with developing clean energy Not relying on the dirty energy of the past like tar sands oil And those resources are there for Canada? I mean Canada, which is where tar sands are coming from Do they have good alternative energy resources? They certainly have some rivers and I think some percentage of energy in Canada comes from hydroelectric What about solar and wind? Are those resources that one could draw on as well up in Canada? Canada is actually doing a lot to develop their clean energy resources The vast majority of the tar sands is not being used by Canada It's being imported by the United States which is then refining the tar sands and then can export the tar sands anywhere in the world So the tar sands are actually not a fuel that are creating energy security for the United States or for Canada The tar sands are just actually creating major environmental challenges And by creating more climate change are putting us at great risk of environmental disasters associated with climate change I think it's always important to follow the money to find out what the force behind this kind of development is Who stands to profit from tar sands? I think Enbridge is some portion, at least they're in control of part of the pipeline Is there someone else who stands to profit? The national government in Canada approved this already Why did they improve the pipelines? There are a lot of companies that have a stake in the tar sands All of the major oil companies have a stake in the tar sands based on mobile, BP, Shell You name it, they've got a stake in the tar sands Additionally, there are pipelines, like you mentioned, Enbridge is a pipeline company and TransCanada Another pipeline company that are hoping to build tar sands pipelines to transport the tar sands out of Alberta So the Canadian government has been incredibly supportive of tar sands development Has not been listening to the people in Canada that have been saying No, but they do not want this tar sands development to proceed unchecked There are really a vast array of companies that have a stake in the tar sands Luckily, there are also a vast loss of environmental organizations, concerned citizens, ranchers, farmers, fishermen, and others Who are standing up and saying no, that we need to defend our climate, our waters, and our resources And they know to tar sands expansion and tar sands pipeline I think part of the issue is, and one of the reasons I have you on today, Elizabeth, is because this is targeted To go through the Great Bear Rainforest amongst other places How dangerous are tar sands pipelines compared to regular oil pipelines? Canada actually has a fair amount of conventional oil and gas production that's going on in addition to the tar sands They do have a number of oil pipelines running out of Alberta, which is where the majority of the oil and gas development is There's an existing Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline that transports a few hundred thousand barrels per day of oil Including some tar sands to Vancouver, so that's actually another pipeline that Kinder Morgan would like to expand Like you mentioned, there's also the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Tar sands pipeline That would transport 525,000 barrels per day of tar sands from Alberta to Kitimat, British Columbia And a really sensitive part of British Columbia coast where tankers would then come in and transport the tar sands Through really risky waters and sends the tar sands anywhere in the world where it could be refined So there's really two risks that we're talking about. One is the pipeline risk. Tar sands are heavy and abrasive and corrosive And because they're so thick they have to be transported at very high pressures Those high pressures create high temperatures and pipelines and those high temperatures actually create a greater risk Of there being corrosion and pipelines and then pipeline ruptures So the pipeline spill risk is great. There are a lot of sensitive river ecosystems That the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline would traverse and a spill into any one of those rivers could be catastrophic We already saw Enbridge is not a safe pipeline transporter of tar sands Enbridge back in 2010 built a million gallons of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo river in Michigan Now over four years later the tar sands that was spilled into the Kalamazoo river, much of it is still at the bottom of the river And will likely never be cleaned up. The other part of the risk that we're talking about Is the tanker transport risk. A lot of areas that the tinkerers would have to travel through from Kidimat to get out into open waters Are narrow and treacherous. There are high winds, there are high waves So a tanker crashed into land and having a major accent and spill, potentially even larger than the Exxon Valdez spill That is a real risk that people are concerned about The area off the coast of British Columbia is the area where the spirit bears was There are only about 400 spirit bears left in that coastal area So a tanker spill could be catastrophic to the spirit bears as well as to salmon and other species that inhabit the area I'm assuming the way that it would work is a tanker spill would damage fish life in the area And part of the chain of fish life that is to say what the salmon eat And the bears I assume eat salmon so if you're destroying their food chain by a spill It would be disastrous for this very rare and very precious bear Absolutely and also just if there was a giant oil spill it would just generally make a lot of habitat uninhabitable for many of these creatures I want to come back to the Great Bear rainforest in a moment but there's also other lines You mentioned there's a lot of tar sands that are being shipped already Which way is it going and what are the other pathways for the pipelines that are proposed? Yeah, so we've just talked a little bit about the pipelines that have been proposed to the west coast of Canada As the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and the expansion of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline There are, as you mentioned, several other pipeline proposals on the table To keep an Excel tar sands pipeline proposed by trans Canada would transport about 830,000 barrels per day of tar sands from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast As you're probably aware there has been massive opposition to the keep an Excel tar sands pipeline Giant protest, members of Congress, experimental groups, citizens ranging from farmers in Nebraska to ranchers in Texas And grandmothers from California, out of the whole nine yards many people from all walks of life have come together to oppose the keep an Excel tar sands pipeline It would run through the Overwell Aquifer in Nebraska which is the source of 30% of the groundwater use for irrigation in the country And so it still in the Overwell Aquifer would be very concerning and could put a lot of our croplands at risk Beyond the keep an Excel tar sands pipeline and because there has been so much opposition to the keep an Excel tar sands pipeline There are a couple of proposals on the table to try to transport the tar sands to the east coast So there's a company that Portland Pipeline Corporation wants to reverse a pipeline so that it could transport tar sands from Montreal and Quebec to Portland, Maine After tar sands traveled through a number of other pipelines getting to Montreal People in the northeast are incredibly concerned about this pipeline proposal as well And have said absolutely not, you cannot transport tar sands across our lands and waters There's another major tar sands pipeline proposal being trans-Canada's energy east tar sands pipeline This pipeline would transport 1.1 million barrels per day with a giant pipeline of tar sands from Alberta Going all the way east through Ontario, Quebec and all the way to St. John, New Brunswick And so along with the pipeline proposal there's also talks of building a couple of ports from which tankers could transport tar sands From Kacuna, Quebec and from St. John, New Brunswick through the St. Lawrence River through the Bay of Fundy And down to the U.S. Gulf Coast for other areas that could accept tar sands for refining But once again, people have realized the risks of tar sands and are standing up and saying no to tar sands pipelines Including the energy east tar sands pipeline proposal You know, something that just occurred to me, I understand why tar sands pipelines are more risky than regular oil pipelines But I'm not sure if tankers carrying tar sands are in any way more dangerous than carrying just regular oil resources Is there a difference in danger or are those similar? Carrying tar sands via tankers presents a major risk for the coast As we have seen with the major tar sands fell into the Kalamazoo River, tar sands sinks when it spills So if there was a spill of tar sands along the coast, you know, if we're talking about the east coast or the west coast It would be near impossible to clean up because the tar sands is still heavy What happens is that the tar sands, it's meant sinks and becomes submerges So that it is incredibly difficult if not impossible to clean up So in order to be transported tar sands has to be diluted with a substance called diluent The diluent tends to evaporate while the ditchman sinks and becomes submerged And that submerged tar sands, like I said, is so difficult to access and clean up So we're talking about really a major threat to any ecosystem in which it's filled So I assume when it sinks to the bottom, it will coat any plants that are there And that means that the fish that live off of those plants have nothing to survive off I assume it disrupts the oxygen cycle within the water All of those kinds of consequences are part of this bitumen coating that would be on the bottom of the ocean Absolutely, it's incredibly disruptive and every way imaginable to the ecosystem Well, let's talk a little bit more about the Great Bear Rainforest where the spirit bear lives I've already talked with Jim Bacchus about the spirit bears and via the Norton Spirit Radio website, NortonSpiritRadio.org You can see a number of photos of these bears that Jim's taken when he's been in that area One of the things that seems very important that even though the national government has given its go ahead for the pipeline into that area of British Columbia There's a lot of local opposition, they're the ones who are actually going to have to deal with the issues And they're the ones who are more concerned about the local ecosystem there Amongst those concerned are the people of the First Nations Could you tell me about the size of that concern and do you have some sense of why they're particularly concerned as opposed to other people not associated with First Nations? Absolutely, well, there are more than 130 First Nations, many of whom have land and water that the pipeline and associated tanker traffic would traverse That has banned Tarfan's pipelines including Northern Gateway from crossing their lands and waters This has really strong legal significance as a decision to build the pipeline wooden fringe on the BC First Nations constitutionally protected, Aboriginal, title and rights The First Nations in the area, many of them rely on the land and water for practicing their traditional practices including hunting and fishing And really rely on the land and water for their livelihood in a way that is different from the way that many other people do And so they can see really what would happen if there was a major spill, it would affect them in a very huge way And are they organized together in some way to have a voice? Are they a part of the Natural Resources Defense Council effort? Are they part of some other coalition that's fighting this possible pipeline through their area? There is a Save the Frager declaration that more than 131st Nations have banned saying absolutely not that pipelines cannot cross our lands or waters Additionally, there is a group of First Nations in British Columbia that is working together to raise money for their legal challenges And so they have a campaign that is ongoing called Pull Together in which they are working to fundraise for the First Nations opposition to the Enverged Northern Gateway to understand pipeline So, as we said, the Canadian federal government has approved this, there's First Nations groups who are opposing it What about the provincial government? What's their stance on the pipeline going through their area? So, what's very interesting in Canada is that unlike in the United States, a federal government approval of a pipeline does not mean that the pipeline is going to be built In fact, with the Northern Gateway to our fans pipeline, that is certainly the case The British Columbia government has formally opposed the Northern Gateway to pipeline because they're concerned about the pipeline and tanker safety risks and the ramifications of a spill So, they're also concerned about the fact that there are so many First Nations who are opposed to the pipeline DC Premier Kristi Clark has laid out five conditions in order to have DC support the project But we believe that the conditions, including requiring the land and posts to be protected from oil sales and address the legal requirements regarding Aboriginal and Treaty Rights of First Nations We believe that this means that the pipeline really will never be built and that BC will not support the Northern Gateway to our fans pipeline So, given the unwavering opposition of the First Nations to the pipeline, the only way to address the five conditions from DC Premier Kristi Clark is really to reject the pipeline In fact, Premier Karp has indicated that there are 60 permits that BC has the power to grant or withhold so without BC support to Northern Gateway to our fans pipeline will not be built There are a few more parts of this that maybe we haven't talked about One of the things that I think in our decision making we sometimes lose track of is what the balance is I'm sure that there are people in Alberta who say if we don't have the tar sands mining, the oil production from there and outlets for it via the pipelines that will lose our jobs Is there some sense of how many jobs are created and how many jobs are lost because of the pipeline? So, for instance, for the Native peoples, they've lost their livelihood if they can't hunt or collect food from the areas where the pipeline is going through Is there some balance of that that has been looked at as well? The question of jobs is definitely one that comes up over and over again when we're talking about pipeline The one that I can tell you the most about is the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline We, you know, from the Keystone XL tar sands pipelines environmental impact statement that the State Department prepared that Keystone XL would only create about 50 permanent jobs It would also create several thousand temporary construction jobs which absolutely are real jobs that should not be discounted But the concerning part is that if there are people who are being made sick from the tar sands refinery pollution We're talking about a lot of lost productivity from that time where people are sick If people are faced with a major tar sands pipeline still that affects their ability to do work We're talking about additional lost jobs And the biggest thing that is really hard to quantify is the fact that the tar sands industry is actually lobbying against clean energy Clean energy provides so many jobs clean energy projects So I think what we really need to do is ramp up our clean energy projects and make sure to do so in a really strategic way That will allow those who need jobs to gain employment through clean energy projects that will be moving the world forward in the positive way Another element that people I think don't include into the calculus of the pros and cons is my domain, the spiritual And this is spirit in action and natural resources defense counsel I think implicitly values something that is not valued by the general society to the degree it should be Could you talk a little bit about the value, the value that goes beyond just dollars and cents and the bottom line calculation that accountants go through What the values are of protecting the spirit bear forest, the other areas of Canada are threatened in the areas of the U.S. that are threatened by the pipelines? Well, you know, we know that people are always valued having protected space, having, you know, open space, having forests And that there is a value that people please aren't just sort of knowing that these things exist Even if they are not resources that they are likely to personally use I would say that there definitely is a value in just having, you know, our lands and waters protected from oil companies You know, regardless of whether or not they are resources that every individual is going to use People can follow up in terms of some of these actions by a couple different websites They will all be on Nordenspiritradio.org so you can look there But stoptar.org is one of them savebiogems.org If you haven't visited that site there is a number of campaigns well worth connecting with And of course you can always connect with the NRDC It's NRDC.org Any of those sites will get you connected with this But you will get there very directly at the savebiogems.org site Now I haven't asked you specifically Elizabeth about your concerns about this Why are you an advocate for these environmental gems that we have? Why are you trying to protect it? Couldn't you make more money if you were working for Enbridge than if you were working against them? I am sure that I could make a lot more money working for an oil company But for me I grew up hearing a lot about environmental issues I have spent a lot of time outdoors and really cherish our natural world And the time I get to spend outside I also am incredibly concerned about our changing climate So I tend to dedicate my life to fighting climate change I have found that there is so much happening in the world to increase urban dioxide emissions And make climate change worse That it is definitely a difficult site But I am up for the battle in the long term I appreciate your work I appreciate the work of NRDC Natural Resources Defense Council I've been a member for a long time I appreciate specifically the sensitivity to the spirit bearers And the rainforests there An unusual gem An irreplaceable gem that exists on this planet All of that work and your continuing dedication I thank you for and especially for joining me today for spirit in action Thanks for having me Find a few links to the NRDCs SaveBiojems.org campaign And to Elizabeth Shope's blog on her work via northernspiritradio.org Clearly there are a lot of folks working hard to preserve the Great Bear Rainforest Against the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline And central among those environmental heroes are the native people around British Columbia One of the inspirational voices for protecting this area Is a very young woman, Takaya Blaney She's been doing this work in word and song for more than three years And she's just turned 13 I believe She'd be speaking with us in person But she's off to Australia right now for another of her international efforts So she gave me permission to share a snippet of something from two years ago When Takaya was just 11 years old She has a grasp of issues and a mastery of word and song That so many of us can only admire Her website is tikayablaney.com See the link on northernspiritradio.org And you can see her saying this on YouTube The links on my site Here is Takaya speaking about and sharing her song "Shallow Waters" I'm going to sing a song that I wrote two years ago And it's called "Shallow Waters" And it's based on this super tanker oil proposal It was meant to remind people of the damaging effects of oil spills It was meant to remind people if we pollute and pollute and pollute This beautiful ecosystem and biome that we live in will be all gone And there's a lyric in the song that says "If we do nothing it'll all be gone" Which I think is the real situation over here So this is just "Shallow Waters" And it was funny because a year ago on this exact day I went to Enbridge building to tell them what I felt about their pipeline And I was escorted out and I was told that if I didn't leave I would be charged for trespassing Charge a ten year old girl for trespassing, so... "Shallow Waters" I can't see the wonders Like a creator to be Tankers and pipelines keep coming in through I turned my head and so did you Oh, oh, oh, oh Why you tears fall from the sky Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Have we given up, please tell me why Remember the salty ocean breeze Used to build castles on a beach Smashing around in this normal heat Now it's just all you love to want is Bring back the days we used to care When all of these troubles were not there Cry for help, this is my song If we do not think it'll all be gone Oh, oh, oh Come with me to the Emerald Sea We're black gold spills into my ocean dreams Nothing of you found us like this around Just the sound of morning in the air So I dance everywhere Oh, oh, oh, oh Are you tears fall from the sky Oh, oh, oh, oh Have we given up, please tell me why Remember the salty ocean breeze Used to build castles on a beach Smashing around in this normal heat Now it's just all you love to want is Bring back the days we used to care When all of these troubles were not there Cry for help, this is my song If we do not think it'll all be gone If we do not think it'll all be gone Oh, oh, oh In shallow waters I can't see You're clear why you're slapping at my feet (Applause) There were shallow waters, co-written by And performed by Takaya Blaney Find more of Takaya's music and work on her site And I'll spell it for you T-A-K-A-I-Y-A-B-L-A-N-E-Y Linked from NorthernSpiritRadio.org Of course, where there is a slideshow About the spirit bears and more We'll see you next week for Spirit in Action The theme music for this program is Turning of the World performed by Sarah Thompson This spirit in action program is an effort Of NorthernSpiritRadio You can listen to our programs and find links And information about us and our guests On our website NorthernSpiritRadio.org Thank you for listening I am your host Mark Helpsmeet And I welcome your comments and stories Of those leading lives of spiritual fruit May you find deep roots to support you And grow steadily toward the light This is Spirit in Action With every voice, with every song We will move this world along With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing You
One of the multiple pipelines proposed to carry tar sands out of Canada is the Northern Gateway Pipeline. It would go through North America's only remaining temperate rain forest and a refuge with exceptional and threatened wildlife, including the Spirit Bear.