Sixty-one indigenous nations joined together in an alliance today to protect the Fraser River watershed and to declare their opposition to the proposed $5.5-billion Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline.
Signed in Williams Lake last week, and published in a full page ad in the Globe and Mail today, the "Save the Fraser Gathering of Nations" says the declaration is based on Indigenous law and authority.
It states that First Nations will not allow Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline, or similar tar sands projects, to cross their traditional lands, territories and watersheds, or the ocean migration routes of Fraser River salmon.
"The Enbridge pipeline would risk an oil spill into our rivers and lands that would destroy our food supply, our livelihoods and our cultures," said Chief Larry Nooski of the Nadleh Whut'en First Nation west of Prince George.
"Our laws do not permit crude oil pipelines into our territories. This project isn't going anywhere," said Nooski in a prepared statement.
The First Nations that signed on to the declaration said critical salmon runs would be threatened by the pipeline.
"Oil spills from the Enbridge pipelines would be inevitable," said Chief Jackie Thomas of Saik'uz First Nation, west of Prince George. "That risk to our livelihoods is unacceptable. Enbridge has spills all over North America, including the big Michigan spill earlier this year. We refuse to be next."
The 1,170-kilometre Enbridge pipeline, which would pass just north of Prince George, is meant to open up new markets for Alberta oil sands crude in Asia.
A two-year federal regulatory process is in the preliminary stages.
