The Vancouver Sun has a couple of pieces up on the decision by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to investigate threats to Waterton-Glacier Park. There is a basic heads-up article and a short pictorial.
The Tyee also has a pretty decent write-up with some handy links to related material.
There’s an AP/Canadian Press article making the rounds, too. But, at this point, it is essentially a light edit of the original press release.
From a “Breaking News” post in today’s online edition of the Missoulian . . .
UNESCO will send a mission to Canada to judge for itself the threat posed by a planned Canadian coal mine to Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.
The group’s World Heritage Commission, meeting in Seville, Spain, voted Friday to send the delegation, and also requested a report from the United States and Canada on the potential dangers.
The Flathead Beacon has picked up on the story about the UNESCO World Heritage Committee’s decision to send a delegation to investigate threats to Waterton-Glacier Park. Here’s the lead-in from a nicely written article by Dan Testa . . .
The United Nations plans to send a fact-finding mission to Canada to investigate environmental threats to the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park due to proposed coal and energy mining activity in the area.
Representatives of U.S. and Canadian conservation groups opposed to mining activity that could harm the water quality and wildlife of the Flathead River Valley are in Seville, Spain, this week for a meeting of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), petitioning to have Waterton-Glacier declared a “World Heritage Site in Danger.”
By a unanimous vote, the 21-country panel that governs those issues decided Friday to send a mission to the region to “evaluate and provide recommendations on the requirements for ensuring the protection” of Waterton-Glacier…
According to the Waterton-Glacier in Danger web log, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has voted unanimously to send a delegation to investigate threats to Waterton-Glacier Park posed by resource development activities.
Here’s the lead-in from the press release. See the Waterton-Glacier in Danger site for details and breaking news . . .
Seville, Spain–UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee voted today to send a fact-finding mission to Canada to investigate threats to Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park posed by energy and mining proposals in BC’s adjacent Flathead River Valley.
The 21-member committee voted unanimously for a 2009 World Heritage Centre mission that will “evaluate and provide recommendations on the requirements for ensuring the protection” of Waterton-Glacier, citing concern about the threats that potential mining and energy development within the Flathead Valley would have on water and ecosystem connectivity. It asked Canada and the US to work together to prepare a report–by February 1, 2010– that examines all Flathead River Valley energy and mining proposals and their cumulative impacts.
Today’s post on the Waterton-Glacier Endangered web log includes information on the UN World Heritage Committee draft resolution concerning the dangers posed to Waterton and Glacier parks by resource extraction in the Flathead headwaters region — the proposed Cline Mine, in particular. According to the posting, the first draft of the resolution does not explicitly call for placing Waterton-Glacier Park on the list of “Endangered World Heritage Sites,” nor does it yet address any indigenous concerns, including those views expressed by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
The UN World Heritage Committee meeting in Seville, Spain runs through June 30th. The schedule document is more than a little opaque, so it is not clear when the resolution on Waterton-Glacier will come up for a final vote.