CFS helps launch fund to fight new tar sands developments

UK citizens are being urged to join a Canadian Cree First Nation in their fight against one of the biggest environmental threats facing the planet.

The Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) wants people to support the Beaver Lake Cree Nation in their legal battle to stop energy companies extracting further oil from tar sands within their ancestral lands in Alberta, Canada.

Tar sands extraction is energy and resource intensive, creating an average of three times as many emissions as conventional oil production. Scientists have predicted that the carbon emissions from shale oil and tar sands would initiate a continual unfolding of climate disasters over the course of this century.

In addition, the exploitation of tar sands also risks local ecological disaster as pristine boreal forest is cleared and watercourses are polluted, making impossible the traditional way of life of indigenous communities.

The Beaver Lake Cree's legal challenge seeks to enforce recognition of their constitutionally protected treaty rights to hunt, fish and gather plants and medicines within their ancestral lands. In order for these rights to have meaning, they want the ecological integrity of their traditional territories and the boreal forest upon which they depend to be protected. The case cites over 17,000 infringements of their rights and will ultimately seek to halt new developments.

A charitable trust was launched today (date) to help raise funds for the legal case with CFS making the first donation of C$100,000 (£53,000).

Paul Monaghan, Head of Social Goals and Sustainability at CFS said: "The Beaver Lake Cree's legal case maybe one of the last and best hopes to stop new tar sands developments.

"This small group of 900 indigenous people are taking on not just the Governments of Canada and Alberta but some of the biggest companies in the world.

They have the support of Canada's leading lawyer on aboriginal law, who has a track record of winning such cases. But they are going to need financial support - and lots of it. Forget the lawsuits against ‘big tobacco', forget Erin Brockovich, this is the big one."

Chief of the Beaver Lake Cree Al Lameman said: "It is an enormous source of strength to receive the goodwill and support of people in the UK. We are facing powerful and wealthy opposition, but we remain firm in our resolve to protect these lands from destruction. Our fight is your fight."

Shells, BP, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Total all have existing or planned tar sands projects that could be impacted if the Cree Nation's legal action is successful.

The public can donate to the legal case via CFS' Toxic Fuels campaign website co-operativecampaigns.co.uk/beaverlakecree