Jonathan email hidden; JavaScript is required June 17, 2025:
Published an op-ed the other day–fast-tracking actions to protect lands, waters, fish, and wildlife.
BC and Canadian policies are rushing natural resource extraction forward–there is a parallel need to fast-track safeguards of lands and waters.
Aerin Jacob, PhD@aerinj.bsky.social:
“As a scientist who studies the health of western Canada’s oceans, rivers, and salmon, my alarm bells are going off.”
This op-ed is worth your time.
It’s excellent
Welcome to Bluesky, @jon-moore.bsky.social!
It’s time to fast-track actions to defend B.C.’s lands, waters, fish and wildlife, Opinion: To fast-track key projects, the B.C. government recently passed Bills 14 and 15. As a scientist who studies the health of western Canada’s oceans, rivers, and salmon, my alarm bells are going off by Jonathan Moore, June 10, 2025, Vancouver Sun
If B.C.’s Bills 14 and 15 are used to fast-track a gold or coal mine, then it will be clear that B.C. is extracting its resources for short-term dollars at the expense of environmental well-being and future generations, writes Jonathan Moore.
B.C. Premier David Eby and Prime Minister Mark Carney have outlined visions for rapid development of B.C. and Canada’s natural resources to “aggressively develop projects that are in the national interest in order to protect Canada’s energy security.”
As a drastic action to fast-track key projects, the provincial government recently narrowly passed Bills 14 and 15, laws that risk trampling Indigenous rights and circumventing environmental protections.
As a scientist who studies the health of western Canada’s oceans, rivers, and salmon, my alarm bells are going off.
B.C. and Canada have an unfortunate track record of failing to protect ecosystems and people from industrial activities.
From Eagle Creek to Mount Polley, mining disasters are releasing toxins into drinking water and killing fish — 70 per cent of B.C.’s salmon populations are declining. In the 2021 B.C. vs. Yahey decision, the B.C. Supreme Court found that the province enabled oil and gas and other industries to cumulatively degrade northeast B.C.’s ecosystems to such an extent that moose and caribou populations collapsed, violating Blueberry River First Nations’ treaty rights.
Risk of such harms to lands, waters, fish, wildlife, and Indigenous rights could be decreased through effective implementation of environmental policies. Eby also states he wants to advance “conservation of precious water and land, and partnership with First Nations.”
Here are five actions that the province could advance to fast-track safeguards for the lands and waters that sustain fish, wildlife, and people:
First, set interim limits of cumulative industry disturbance to minimize risks of pushing lands and waters over thresholds of unacceptable harm. Currently, neither B.C. nor Canada has a policy that provides certainty for local peoples and industry by saying, “This is too much.” Excellent recommendation needed decades ago. I’ve lived frac’d for 24 years, coping with endless abusive impacts. No authority has punished for fined Encana/Ovintiv for numerous illegal acts, including frac’ing and contaminating my community’s drinking water supply and soon, I’ll be frac’d more. The abuse by frac’ers in NEBC and elsewhere in Canada must top. It’s grossly unfair and hell to endure.
There is an opportunity to leverage the existing B.C. Cumulative Effects Framework and the 2021 Yahey legal precedence to set interim baseline thresholds for cumulative disturbance with statutory power across all sectors.
Second, support and empower regional planning processes. There are various new and ongoing planning processes that work with local rights-holders and other groups to incorporate local values and priorities to identify opportunities and limits for industry. Local peoples may want more, or less, stringent regulations than provincial thresholds. There is an opportunity to increase investment in and authority of land-use planning processes that supersede provincial guidelines.
Third, protect 30 per cent of B.C. by 2030, guided by local rights-holders and scientific information. Indigenous protected and conserved areas and other Indigenous-led conservation initiatives can protect key ecosystems for current and future generations. Collectively, these locally and science-driven conservation areas could prioritize the protection of critical areas for cultural keystone species such as moose, caribou, and salmon and set no-go zones for industry. Continued action is needed if commitments of 30 per cent protection by 2030 are to be met.
Fourth, prevent empty promises of economic benefits of industries. A 2023 study found that mines underdelivered promised jobs by 40 per cent, and delivered only one-third of forecasted tax revenue. A 2024 report found that many mine claims are doing environmentally harmful explorations aimed to garner investments that make mining executives even richer, but without intent to actually extract minerals. B.C.’s lands, waters, and local peoples would have some defence against get-rich-quick schemes if mining companies were required to submit a robust economic feasibility plan as part of their project description in the early stages of environmental assessment.
Fifth, reconsider Bills 14 and 15 and clarify their application. Bills 14 and 15 give authority to fast-track projects and thus are a bellwether for the true colours of the province. Amendments to the bills could clarify how selected projects will consider environmental risks and incorporate free, prior, and informed consent to avoid violation of B.C.’s 2019 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. If the bills are used to fast-track a gold or coal mine, then it will be clear that B.C. is extracting its resources for short-term dollars at the expense of environmental well-being and future generations.
In these times of crisis, B.C. and Canada have the very real opportunity to be global leaders in the triple bottom line of social, economic, and environmental thriving. As Canada takes action to fast-track sustainable development, there is a parallel need to fast-track actions to not sell off the health of our lands, waters, and futures to extractive industries.
Healthy watersheds mean healthy people and healthy economies.
Jonathan Moore is a professor of aquatic ecology and conservation at Simon Fraser University and Liber Ero Chair of coastal science and management.
Mark Labelle:
I fully support those recommendations. Eby is simply supporting further environmental impacts for the sake of short term ‘pseudo-economic’ benefits.
Continued and ‘non-sustainable’ growth in this fashion, in the long term, will be to the detriment of the province’s wealth and prosperity. That includes natural ecosystems, current and future habitants, and the world at large.
Susan Fisher:
An important contribution to the debate about these ill-conceived provincial bills. But I’m not sure that indigenous rights should be foregrounded — ecological damage hurts everyone, whatever their ancestry. In any case, quite a few indigenous communities are hoping to profit from the new push for resource development.
Ethan Moon:
I like how a healthy ecosystem objectively provides quantitative enrichment for locals, as well as provides people with clean air and water (not to mention the right for other organisms to exist), and yet this is considered an opinion.
What’s the point of a healthy economy if we have to lose our Western Sandpipers to a collapse in the local food chain at Roberts Point?
AW:
Toxins in the environment don’t observe human-defined boundaries, but flow wherever they can. They will harm you whatever your ethnic origin, status or wealth. So seems that we all need to care what is in our food, air and water. No amount of wages, profit or ‘progress’ will protect your children. That’s the job of all of us adults.
greg Johnson:
Don’t trust the word of profiters