Legal challenge begun in relation to exploratory drilling in marine refuge
Exemption from federal environment impact assessment
Earlier this year, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada, Jonathan Wilkinson, created a regulation that exempts exploratory drilling projects in the offshore region east of Newfoundland from federal impact assessment because a large-scale Regional Assessment had been completed. However, environmental groups, including EAC, have argued that the Regional Assessment was fundamentally flawed and incomplete,
An oil exploration ship, this one owned by UK-based Stena Drilling, but similar to the type of vessel that may be used in the new area overlapping the marine refuge. (Stena Drilling Ltd via CBC)
The Regional Assessment[3] and the federal exemption regulation[4] are now being challenged in court by the non-profit Ecojustice acting on behalf of the EAC, WWF-Canada and the Sierra Club Canada Foundation.
Canada has committed to protecting 25% of its ocean area by 2025 and 30% by 2030 and counts both protected areas (MPA) and refuges towards this goal.
Although the current permit is for exploratory drilling only, if a production lease is granted for the refuge, the lease area no longer counts toward the protected area goals.
additional information-sources
References
- ^ sq.km (sq.km)
- ^ Ecology Action Centre, (ecologyaction.ca)
- ^ The Regional Assessment ((https)
- ^ federal exemption regulation (www.ecojustice.ca)
Source URL: Read More
The public content above was dynamically discovered – by graded relevancy to this site’s keyword domain name. Such discovery was by systematic attempts to filter for “Creative Commons“ re-use licensing and/or by Press Release distributions. “Source URL” states the content’s owner and/or publisher. When possible, this site references the content above to generate its value-add, the dynamic sentimental analysis below, which allows us to research global sentiments across a multitude of topics related to this site’s specific keyword domain name. Additionally, when possible, this site references the content above to provide on-demand (multilingual) translations and/or to power its “Read Article to Me” feature, which reads the content aloud to visitors. Where applicable, this site also auto-generates a “References” section, which appends the content above by listing all mentioned links. Views expressed in the content above are solely those of the author(s). We do not endorse, offer to sell, promote, recommend, or, otherwise, make any statement about the content above. We reference the content above for your “reading” entertainment purposes only. Review “DMCA & Terms”, at the bottom of this site, for terms of your access and use as well as for applicable DMCA take-down request.