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

In the next installments of our Indigenous law in language blog series, we wanted to talk with some scientists to see how we can begin to bridge the languages of western and Indigenous science together. Dr.

In September 2021, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated Átl’ḵa7tsem/Howe Sound and the surrounding watershed as a biosphere region (also referred to as a “biosphere reserve”).

For our Indigenous Law in Language blog series, we spoke with Simogyet Watakhayetsxw, Gitanyow Hereditary Chief Deborah Good.

Every summer, West Coast has the privilege of mentoring and welcoming a fresh cohort of enthusiastic law students from BC and Canada into the world of environmental and Indigenous law. 

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (the “UN Declaration”) recognizes that Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination and to revitalize, use, develop, and transmit to future generati

Spring is usually a beautiful, vibrant time in the Fraser River Estuary, but this year it also brought the dark cloud of federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s approval of the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (T2) expansion project.

Hot off the presses! Our new Together Against Trans Mountain sticker features five species standing up to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project (TMX): orcas, salmon, Anna's hummingbirds, red-breasted sapsuckers, and the Oregon forestsnail. 

On June 23, in the middle of what is expected to be the busiest cruise ship season ever on the west coast, Canada finally announced a

This spring, the Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance (LFFA) and RELAW (Revitalizing Indigenous Law for Land, Air & Water) brought young people and Guardians from Lower Fraser First Nations together to discuss the importance

Fish were once so abundant in BC waters that Indigenous elders remember dried salmon being stacked like firewood behind the stove, and the sound of herring at night so loud you could mistake it for rainfall. But declines on the BC coast have accelerated over the last century, with marine wildlife cut in half in just four decades.