RIVERS WITHOUT BORDERS

Shannon McPhail: Volunteer Executive Director, Leader

I recently had the opportunity to spend a little time at Hollyhock Institute on Cortes Island, BC.  Hollyhock offered a week-long course called the Canadian Environmental Leadership Program, and 30 conservationists/lawyers/ environmentalists/social justice advocates were in attendance, including Shannon McPhail, executive director of the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition (SWCC).  I asked Shannon to elaborate upon a question that participants were invited to respond to at the introduction of the program, and the question was: "why do you do the work that you do?"  Her feedback makes Rivers Without Borders hope it will be able to partner more closely with Shannon and SWCC in the future.

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‘Klabona’ on CTV

This Saturday, November 24th at 5 pm (PST), tune in to CTV’s First Story. This week’s feature is called "Klabona."  Klabona is the area otherwise known as the Sacred Headwaters, situated in the heart of Tahltan territory, about 500 km north of Smithers, BC. 

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Shell Games

If you haven’t heard of the Sacred Headwaters yet, you soon will. The media has been abuzz of late about Royal Dutch Shell’s attempts to brush aside local Tahltan First Nation opposition there and crank up exploration for coal-bed methane. The Sacred Headwaters is the shared birthplace of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine Rivers: three of North America’s most important wild salmon rivers.

Shell may not know who they are messing with in trying to run roughshod over the interests of Tahltan people. Robert Campbell, an early explorer of the Stikine River for the Hudson’s Bay Company was astonished at his indelicate treatment by the people he called the Nahanni when he tried to establish a fort in the Stikine in 1839: "They … demanded payment for inhabiting their country, and if we did not trade like the Russian traders, to clear out." Campbell did clear out, and the resolve of the Tahltan people to be the masters of their own Territory seems as robust as ever. 

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Sacred Headwaters Gathering 2007

Hey there… Andre here, new guy with Rivers Without Borders - Whitehorse office.

From July 13-15th I headed down to the Stikine River watershed in north-western BC to attend The Sacred Headwaters gathering in Iskut, BC. The central message of the weekend was clear: Stomp Out Shell! 

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