Scientists assail easing of rules for natural gas exploration

Mike De Souza
Vancouver Sun
November 21, 2008

Planned changes cited as path to ecological crisis in boreal forests

OTTAWA -- The Harper government's plans to ease regulations on environmental assessments for natural gas exploration will lead to an ecological crisis in the Canadian Arctic, a group of leading international scientists said Thursday.

The scientists, who are promoting a massive expansion of protected areas in the boreal forest as part of a campaign for Pew Charitable Trusts, compared the proposal to the measures that led to the current global economic crisis.

"The shining example of deregulation is the present free-fall of the world's developed economies," said Jeremy Kerr, a biology professor from the University of Ottawa.

"You can apply exactly the same analogy to natural systems. Deregulating development in natural systems is likely to do ecologically, exactly what deregulation did economically. There is not a defensible position to be made there on any scientific grounds that I'm aware of or have ever heard of."

In its throne speech, the government pledged to "reduce regulatory and other barriers to extend the pipeline network into the North" and increase exploration of natural gas in the north to meet energy needs in southern Canada and the rest of the world.

But the scientists, who are serving as expert advisers for Pew's International Boreal Conservation campaign, said this would put Canada at odds with a new administration in the U.S. led by Barack Obama, that would likely call for more stringent environmental protection and assessments.

They also praised the Ontario and Quebec governments for pledging to protect large areas of the boreal forest, one of the largest intact forests remaining on earth.

"When you're talking about global warming, plants and animals are moving north in the northern hemisphere," said Terry Root, a biology professor from Stanford University in California. "What's up north is going to be this wonderful forest that's going to act as a buffer for all these species in North America."

It's estimated that the boreal forest stores about 27 years worth of global carbon dioxide emissions in its trees and soil across a territory that is estimated to cover 5.7 million square kilometres. The scientists met on Thursday with a senior official from Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's office, and they are hoping other jurisdictions in Canada follow up on the measures promised by the two central Canadian provinces.

"It is one of the last places on earth where there remains an opportunity to conserve something that is still really big, and that still works just fine," said Kerr.

The group also noted that development in the Alberta oilsands is a particular danger, not only because of high energy consumption in the oil extraction process, but also because of greenhouse gas emissions generated through land use changes in the forests that are being used for production.