Environmental Law Alert Blog

Through our Environmental Law Alert blog, West Coast keeps you up to date on the latest developments and issues in environmental law. This includes:

  • proposed changes to the law that will weaken, or strengthen, environmental protection;
  • stories and situations where existing environmental laws are failing to protect the environment; and
  • emerging legal strategies that could be used to protect our environment.

If you have an environmental story that we should hear about, please e-mail Andrew Gage. We welcome your comments on any of the posts to this blog – but please keep in mind our policies on comments.

2020 Canadian Law Blog Awards Winner

Should BC be used to trans-ship American coal to China? Who gets to decide? And what does that mean for our environment?

According to the BC Government, the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic – a direct result of climate change – cost British Columbia billions in lost timber value alone – not counting environmental and other damages.

That was the question posed by the investor website seekingalpha.com following

On April 11, 2014, the Yinka Dene Alliance (“YDA”) held an All Clans Gathering in Nak’azdli (adjacent to Fort St. James) in order for their leaders and elders to issue reasons for the rejection of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline in a gathering according to their laws.

Photo credit Graham Osborne

Following hot on the heels of the controversial Park Amendment Act (Bill 4), the BC government has introduced another bill that would open up some of the province’s most publicly valuable lands – in this case, its farmlands – to industrial development.

A little more than a week ago (on February 13th), the Association of BC Forest Professionals (ABCFP) awarded its first ever “Climate Change Innovators” Award to Alex Woods, a Forest Pathologist working for the BC Government.  The launch of this award, a clear statement on the importance of addressing climate change in professional forestry, come

It feels a bit like déjà vu. 

Once again we’re faced with a federal government study that was highly relevant to the environmental assessment of the Enbridge pipelines and tankers project, but which was not considered in the assessment because it was released too late.

Our 2011 report, Professionals and Climate Change, made the case that climate change fundamentally impacts the work and ethical obligations of many different types of professions, and that the professional associations that gover