Elk Valley Branch News

No announcement, Fernie office shut, website mute: is this continual public consultation? ... Read more »

Recap from last week: The trio has crossed the Wigwam headwaters and climbed Couldrey Ridge. At last, they enter the Flathead Basin …

DAY FOUR ... Read more »

2009-2010 annual report ... Read more »

The East Kootenay Woodstove Exchange for spring 2010 begins on March 1, 2010.  ... Read more »

The public is invited to obtain information about and comment on the draft Application Information Requirements which will specify the studies to be conducted and the detailed information to be provid ... Read more »

Let’s encourage B.C. to take the next two. . .

By Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun ... Read more »

Two international scientists sent to investigate potential mining activities in the Flathead River Valley wrapped up their fact-finding tour at a meeting in Fernie, B.C., in late September. They were sent by the United Nations World Heritage Committee (WHC).
Fernie is just north of the Flathead Valley, which is threatened by coal and gold mining as well as future coalbed methane development. These threats caused heads to turn at the annual meeting of the WHC in Spain earlier this year, prompting the committee to recommend that there be an investigation in the Flathead as soon as possible.

“B.C.’s portion of the Flathead is right beside the Waterton-Glacier World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve,” said Casey Brennan, Wildsight’s Southern Rockies program manager.

“Alberta and Montana have protected their parts of this amazing ecosystem, but B.C. has not. Mining in B.C.’s Flathead could create devastating consequences to the heritage
site — as well as to the Flathead River Valley itself.”

Brennan said even though the B.C. Flathead has escaped a number of attempts to industrialize it, pressures to mine there are as strong as ever. “A company just recently got the go-ahead to explore for gold in the Howell Creek,” he said. “It’s a main tributary in the Flathead Valley watershed.”

In June, the World Heritage Committee also asked Canada and the U.S. to work together on a report — due this February — that examines all Flathead energy and mining proposals and their cumulative impacts.

“Now we’ve just got to wait for the results of the fact-finding mission which are due next year,” Brennan said. “We hope the B.C. government leads the way by protecting the lower third of the B.C. Flathead as a park and by revising the management plan of the rest of the valley. Perhaps the easiest step the Province could take right away
would be to put a moratorium on all mining and staking activities in the Flathead River Valley.”

Brennan said the current management plan governing the Flathead puts mining interests above water, wildlife and all other values.

“That has to change to ensure this area — one of the continent’s most important wildlife habitats and corridors — doesn’t fall prey to the ‘too little, too late’ syndrome.”

Brennan looks forward to reviewing the recommendations made by the World
Heritage Committee scientists next June, when UNESCO holds its next annual meeting in Brazil.
 

By Rebecca Edwards
Fernie Free Press
September 24, 2009

Help clear up the Elk River shoreline so humans and wildlife alike can continue to enjoy it.
... Read more »

After 10 days in the field, the International League of Conservation Photographers has wrapped its RAVE (Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition) in B.C.’s threatened Flathead River Valley. (See attached backgrounder.) Their goal: to create a library of images for use by media and conservationists and help draw attention to the industrial threats facing the Flathead and to document the extrodinary natural values there.

Attached Photo © Justin Black ILCP

View the photos from the RAVE here.

The RAVE photographers fanned out over the valley, working in the early mornings and late evenings to capture the best light. They shot all sorts of images, from aerials to landscapes and specialized underwater river photography. A large mammal photographer set up remote cameras to capture the many carnivores and ungulates that inhabit the Flathead. (Some of those images are still being retrieved from their remote locations and will be uploaded by the end of the week.)

The Flathead made news recently when UNESCO voted to conduct a fact-finding mission over environmental threats to the Flathead. The Flathead is adjacent to Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. Waterton-Glacier is the world’s first peace park, with World Heritage Site and United Nations Biosphere Reserve status, hence UNESCO’s concern.

Conservationists have spent three decades trying to protect B.C.’s Flathead River Valley.

Photos/Video/Sound now available to all media

Access images here: http://gallery.me.com/ilcp
Download HD B-Roll footage and background sound here: ftp.wildsight.ca USER: wildsightftp PASS: wildsight

All images/video/sound are free for regular media use. Please use credit information provided in the downloaded files META information.

For more information:

Trevor Frost
International League of Conservation Photographers
571-379-1733
trevor@ilcp.com

Harvey Locke
Wild Foundation/Yellowstone to Yukon
303-442-8811, ext. 18
harvey@wild.org

Casey Brennan
Wildsight
250-423-2603 (office)
250-423-0402 (cell)
casey@wildsight.ca

Carrie West
Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society – BC Chapter
604-685-7445 ext. 22
carrie@cpawsbc.org

Proposed Coal Mine in BC’s Flathead River Valley Triggers United Nations Assessment

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has agreed to consider a petition from 11 Canadian and US conservation groups asking that Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park be designated a “World Heritage Site in Danger”, due to a proposed coal mine and other development in BC’s adjoining Flathead River Valley.

The World Heritage Committee will consider the request—by Sierra Club BC, Wildsight and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) among other groups—at its June 22 to 30 session in Seville, Spain.

“The Flathead River Valley provides critical habitat for rare and endangered species that migrate to and from Waterton-Glacier, and it has the highest density of grizzly bears in the interior of North America,” said Wildsight spokesperson Ryland Nelson, who will attend the Seville session. “We’re asking the World Heritage Committee to assess potentially grave impacts on water and wildlife in Waterton-Glacier, given that BC’s land use plan for the Flathead River Valley prioritizes mining and energy development.”

A US Department of the Interior report says heavy metals and other contaminants from Cline Mining Corp’s proposed mountain top removal coal mine, currently under review by the BC Environmental Assessment Office, will reach Glacier National Park via the transboundary Flathead River in as little as 24 hours.

“Cline plans to remove 40 million tonnes of coal and dump waste rock into Foisey Creek, a headwaters stream of the Flathead River 35 kilometres upstream from this World Heritage Site,” said Sierra Club BC spokesperson Sarah Cox. “Scientists have identified Foisey Creek as critical habitat for threatened bull trout and genetically-pure westslope cutthroat trout migrating from Glacier Park to spawn in the Flathead River—which was recently named BC’s most endangered river and is in urgent need of permanent protection.”

“We hope the World Heritage Committee will review stewardship of this globally-significant wilderness, and make recommendations about how to protect this extraordinary place,” said Chloe O’Loughlin, Executive Director of CPAWS BC. “BC’s Flathead River Valley is the long-recognized missing piece of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, and the BC government should allow it the same high level of protection.”

Waterton-Glacier will become the 31st “World Heritage Site in Danger”, and the only one in North America, if the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) committee decides to add the park—the world’s first international peace park and a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve—to the list of world heritage in danger.

For more information on the UNESCO petition visit this link - http://tinyurl.com/wgdanger

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Contact: Ryland Nelson, Wildsight: (250) 531-0445
Chloe O’Loughlin, CPAWS: (604) 685-7445
Sarah Cox, Sierra Club BC (250) 386-5255×257, c. 250-812-1762

Teaser unveiled for upcoming Flathead documentary

About a year ago, Fernie’s Ryland Nelson had an idea for a creative project.
Nelson, a Wildsight member — and an avid skier, mountain biker and videographer — imagined a feature-length documentary on B.C.’s Flathead River Valley.

“I wanted to tell the story of a Flathead most people don’t hear,” Nelson said. “The idea to make the Flathead into a park goes back nearly a hundred years.”

Nelson’s research led him all the way back to the year 1911, when “Kootenai” Brown, Waterton Lakes National Park’s very first superintendent, suggested expanding the park’s boundary west to include the Flathead.

“Since then,” Nelson said, “countless individuals and organizations have been seeking the same thing. That’s a 98-year effort!”

Nelson would like to make a full-feature documentary to trace the efforts to protect the Flathead River Valley, which is one of North America’s most unique wilderness areas. He would like to distribute it online and at mountain film festivals around the world.

“The Flathead River Valley is an amazing storehouse of biodiversity that deserves to be known all over the world,” he said.

Film teaser online now!

Recently, Nelson finished a three-minute “teaser” for the documentary and posted it on YouTube.

The teaser incorporates a “Google Earth” — an expanding view of Earth from space that takes the viewer right into the area in question and helps them place the Flathead River Valley firmly in their geo-spatial sense of place.

“It is amazing how long people have been trying to expand the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park,” Nelson said. “That is what I find so fascinating. This is clearly an idea whose time has come.”