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

Governments are meeting in Ottawa to negotiate a global treaty to regulate plastic pollution. Let's urge Canada to take leadership role in ensuring an effective treaty – including a strong cap on global plastic production.

Vancouver City Council sues for bridge repairs, but rejects idea of suing fossil fuel companies for climate damages

Get to know Staff Lawyer Deborah Carlson and West Coast Environmental Law's Liveable Sustainable Communities, where she works with communities in BC to develop legal frameworks that support healthy, low-impact urban areas, and community-based planning processes that start from our connection to the natural environment. The program also focuses on climate change challenges and how communities can adapt and thrive with ecosystem-based responses.

Our RELAW (Revitalizing Indigenous Law for Land, Air and Water) program has reached its eight-year milestone. Read along as we reflect on powerful themes from our collective learning and celebrate eight years of making an impact.

At West Coast, we know that safeguarding the environment must be approached from multiple angles. One such angle is ensuring that current and proposed federal environmental laws are just and sustainable.

The Central Coast National Marine Conservation Area Reserve is undergoing a feasibility study. You can show your support by sending a letter!

Critters, rejoice. Canada appears to be in an era of renewed attention to wildlife and the lands and waters they need to survive and thrive. 

Climate change and biodiversity loss threaten our environment. Help us reverse this trend with an all-of-government solution.

The BC government is currently experiencing backlash for proposing amendments to the Land Act that could allow the Province to implement joint or consent-based decision-making agreements with Indigenous governments in relation to lands within their territories.

What is a local government to do when it has a “funding gap” that will expose its residents to climate impacts and prevent it from meeting its climate goals? That’s the question that staff at the District of Saanich dealt with as they wrote up their fifth Annual Climate Plan Report Card.