Help Stop Mine Threatening Jasper National Park
8/20/97
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Help Stop Mine Threatening Jasper National Park
Source: GrassRoots Environmental Effectiveness Network
Date: 8/20/97
Folks,
The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Coalition needs our help
to stop this mine. Let's give them a hand!
Help Stop an American Mine Threatening Canada's Jasper
National Park!
Letters Needed Immediately!
August 20, 1997
We may only have two weeks to prevent the final approval for
an ecologically-disastrous open pit coal mine, to be built
by Cardinal River Boals (50% American-owned) just one short
mile outside Alberta's Jasper National Park! What's at
stake is the future survival of the area's grizzlies,
cougars, wolves, songbirds, Harlequin ducks and other
wildlife.
The Cheviot mine has been approved by a federal/provincial
panel and awaits the final go ahead from the Canadian
government. As we helped American groups fight the New
World Mine threatening Yellowstone, please help us stop this
American-owned mine threatening Canada's Jasper National
Park!
What You Can Do:
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Send an email (min@www.ncr.dfo.ca) or fax (613-990-7292)
immediately to Canada's Minister of Fisheries and Ocean,
David Anderson, urging him to not approve the mine by
refusing to grant a fisheries permit. Tell him the Cheviot
project is neither ecologically nor economically viable,
and poses unacceptable threats to the environmental health
of Jasper National Park.
For more information, please consult the action alert on the
homepage of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
(http://www.rockies.ca/cpaws.cheviot.htm).
Thank you for your support!
If you still have questions, call Mary Granskou at (416)979-
2720.
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Background Information on the Cheviot Mine
On June 17, 1997 a joint Canadian federal-provincial review
panel gave the go ahead for a massive, ecologically-
destructive coal mine just one short mile from Jasper
National Park! What's at stake is the future survival of
the area's grizzlies, cougars, wolves, songbirds, Harlequin
ducks and other wildlife.
Renowned biologists, conservation groups, the Canadian
Wildlife Service, Parks Canada and others all testified
before the panel that this mine will have grave
environmental effects and yet it's been given the green
light.
Conservationists are appalled the panel deemed the Cheviot
mine "in the public interest", even though the mine will
destroy prime habitat for grizzly bears ranging in and
around Jasper National Park. The company, Cardinal River
Coals, (half American-owned) says its will compensate by
financing more wildlife research. This is unacceptable!
All Cheviot needs now is a final stamp of approval from the
federal Fisheries Minister. We still have a chance to win
our campaign in Ottawa. Given the US/Canadian salmon wars,
Canada's newly re-elected federal government would be wise
to avoid another environmental controversy so early in their
new term.
Cardinal River Coals plans to dig up 25 tons along the
resplendent front ranges of the Rocky Mountains for this
open pit mine 14 miles long and up to five miles wide.
Heavy equipment would ruin eight creeks which form the
headwaters of two rivers. The proposed mine is in the
shadow of the nationally-significant Cardinal Divide, from
where waters flow into the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.
The Cheviot mine would destroy prime habitat and disrupt
wildlife travel routes for at least 100 years.
The lawyer who represented a coalition of environmental
groups at the assessment hearings, raised the impacts on
habitat links:
ecological linkages are essential to sustain viable
populations and, therefore, sustain the ecological integrity
of Jasper National Park. This mine will clearly sever those
linkages and will have a devastating impact.
Roughly half of Alberta's remaining grizzly bears live in
the Rocky Mountains. The mine could likely lead to the loss
of not only grizzlies, but cougars, wolves and wolverines
from the area.
The Cardinal Divide is a unique, biologically rich area not
glaciated during the last continental ice age. The plants
and insects are the direct descendants of species dating
possibly as far back as 128,000 years. This loss of this
diversity cannot be mitigated by a mining company.
So, please join your conservation colleagues in Canada to
stop the Cheviot mine and preserve the ecological integrity
of Jasper National Park. We'll gladly return the favor.
Thank you!
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Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
National Office
401 Richmond St. West
Suite 380
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
Canada
ph: (416) 979-2720
fax: (416) 979-3155
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Roger Featherstone -- Director
GrassRoots Environmental Effectiveness Network
A project of Defenders of Wildlife
1101 14th St. NW, Suite 1400, Washington, DC 20005
(202) 682-9400 x290 fax:(202) 682-1331 e-mail:
rfeather@clark.net
check out our web page at:
http://www.defenders.org/grnhome.html
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PLEASE NOTE: After September 1, 1997, my contact
information will be:
GREEN
PO Box 40046, Albuquerque, NM 87196-0046
(505) 277-8302 fax:(505) 277-5483 e-mail:
rfeather@defenders.org
(All other GREEN staff will remain at Washington, DC,
address)