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April 2007

Vol. 12, No. 14 Week of April 08, 2007

Deh Cho: No conservation, no pipeline

This time the last aboriginal holdout against the Mackenzie gas pipeline project has the backing of four environmental groups

By Gary Park

For Petroleum News

The Deh Cho First Nation has issued another ultimatum to the Canadian government — either a sprawling area of the Northwest Territories is set aside as a conservation area or there will be no gas pipeline along the Mackenzie Valley.

And this time the aboriginal community has the backing of four environmental groups to set aside 60 percent of the land being claimed by the Deh Cho as part of its self-government negotiations.

Grand Chief Herb Norwegian told reporters in Calgary that unless Ottawa agrees to the proposal the Deh Cho will block construction of the proposed pipeline.

He said the government has been “dragging their heels; they just haven’t moved on any issues. We need to move forward. We need some decisions.”

The Deh Cho, whose region covers 40 percent of the planned pipeline route and embraces 10 communities in the southwest region of the NWT, is the last aboriginal holdout against the project.

The land use plan was developed over four years and approved by the Deh Cho leadership last June.

But Norwegian said it has been rejected by federal negotiators because it places too much emphasis on conservation.

Conservation groups back move

Backing the Deh Cho are the World Wildlife Fund Canada, the Canadian Boreal Initiative, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and Ducks Unlimited.

Monte Hummel, president emeritus of the WWF, challenged Indian Affairs and Northern Development Minister Jim Prentice to match his government’s “green” rhetoric of late with action.

He said it is “rather breathtaking” that the government believes the proposal wants to protect “too much.”

“Does Jim Prentice really believe that future generations are going to blame him or any of us for having protected too much of Canada?” Hummel said. “I don’t think so.”

Harvey Locke, a spokesman for the parks and wilderness society, said it “borders on the unbelievable to think that we would squander this opportunity to protect this world-class area” at a time of “rampant extinctions and high-speed climate change”

Norwegian said that if the federal government refuses to endorse the land-use plan and tries to push ahead with pipeline approval it will collide with a Deh Cho legal strategy.

He also warned his community is ready to take “direct action” where people would “defend themselves” and take steps to block development.

A spokeswoman for Prentice said the minister hopes to resume negotiations “in a matter of weeks.”

She said the government has told the Deh Cho it is willing to work on a satisfactory solution to the land-use issue, but the place to resolve the dispute is at the negotiating table.






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