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To: Wharf Rat who wrote (38617)	12/18/2004 2:54:49 PM
From: abuelita	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 104202

fuzzy rat- better git your protest boots shined up. yer gonna need 'em: North Slope the next U.S.-Canada bone of contention Barbara Yaffe Vancouver Sun December 18, 2004 As Canada and the U.S. struggle to resolve longstanding trade disputes over beef and softwood lumber, a potential big chill is shaping up on a new front. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will be the setting for the next bilateral shootout. George W. Bush wants to drill there for oil and gas, a move Canada opposes. The government for some time has been asking the Americans to designate the area as wilderness to protect the Porcupine caribou herd. Canada already has designated the calving grounds it controls off limits to development. This, despite reports of substantial oil and gas potential on those grounds. Canada's ambassador to the U.S., Michael Kergin, who visited The Vancouver Sun last week, predicted this will be the next big irritant facing the two countries. A bit of background. In 1987 the two nations signed an Agreement on the Conservation of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, calling for protection of the herd and its habitat and requiring consultation should the herd's migration route be disrupted. The herd's health is crucial for survival of a group of inland aboriginal people known as the Gwich'in. There's little else to sustain the 7,000-member band. The proposed drilling area happens to contain the richest caribou grazing land in the region. It also offers important protection to the herd during calving season from predators and insects. The oil drilling debate has the makings of a good donnybrook between the U.S. and Canada, given their divergent political values. In 2004, Canadians, led by a Liberal government, are of a mind to protect the environment. By contrast, the U.S. is dominated by Republicans and, having rejected the Kyoto Portocol, appears driven by a lust for a secure energy supply. The November elections have yielded sufficient Republican votes in Congress to make oil exploration in the refuge a reality, perhaps as early as next spring. So Canada will have to quickly step up its lobbying efforts on the issue. A website article posted by the Canadian Embassy in Washington says the U.S. area in question, known as the North Slope, is home to rare sheep, grizzly and polar bears, wolves, muskoxen and migratory birds as well as the Porcupine herd. Alas, there's also a six-month supply of oil for the entire U.S. under the same tundra and, in Canada's view, no way to protect the wildlife if drilling proceeds. The reservoirs are scattered, the Canadian embassy website notes. Development "would require year-round activity and permanent infrastructure such as elevated pipelines, gravel roads, production facilities, aggregate pits and storage piles, work camps, and power and waste disposal plants." Of course, American environmentalists are enraged. Defenders of Wildlife, which lobbies for protection of endangered species, calls Alaska's northeast corner "the wildest place left in America . . . the American Serengeti." "The industry would grab more profits and the nation would drain more non-renewable fossil fuel at the cost of spoiling our most remote wildlife sanctuary. It's not worth it." Many in the U.S. disagree, including Alaska's Republican governor, Frank Murkowski, who recently told a political conference "our growing reliance on foreign oil . . . means that instead of getting more oil from Alaska, where our standards are the highest in the world, it's being produced somewhere else that has far less environmental oversight." Proponents of drilling in the refuge stress the importance of America weaning itself off oil from unstable Arab countries. Not surprisingly, they argue drilling can be done in a way that won't disturb the wildlife. Both Americans and Canadian environmentists better hop aboard this train before it leaves the station and heads for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where it looks very much like oil exploration is on the agenda, and soon. Canada's voice must be heard in this debate because the drilling would ravage the 1987 treaty Canada signed in good faith, thereby calling into question the value of other bilateral treaties with the U.S. And Bush's plan to drill will have an adverse environmental and social impact on the Canadian side of the border. Conservation, anyone? byaffe@png.canwest.com © The Vancouver Sun 2004