The British Columbia Environmental Network (BCEN) Webpages 

Member organizations within the Network advocate for environmental responsibility and community participation in activities leading to ecological sustainability.


Help protect Teztan Biny (Fish Lake) from the proposed Prosperity Mine.

Taseko Mines Ltd. is proposing the use of Teztan Biny as a acid tailings lake, a practice that since 2002 has been supported by controversial changes to the Fisheries Act under Schedule 2 which allow for the redefining of any lake as a “Tailings Impoundment Area.”. The proposed mine's two kilometer-wide open pit, tailings pond, waste rock piles, roads, and transmission lines would destroy the entire sub-alpine ecosystem around the lake and Teztan Biny.

Teztan Biny is part of the Tsilhqot’in homeland and the Taseko River / Fraser River watershed.  

At Teztan, Nabas, and Jididzay, Tsilhqot’in families have hunted, trapped and fished, and gathered medicines in their traditional way of life for decades, just like their ancestors, the Esghaydam, did before them.  
Today, Teztan is still a beautiful and powerful place where they go to practice their culture and preserve their way of life. Since settlers came into their land, they have worked hard to protect their culture and their way of life from the settlers destructive ways. Now Taseko Mines Ltd. wants to build a huge mine there. They want to cut the trees, tear up the land, and make a lake of poisoned waters there, forever destroying this lake. We do not want to see Teztan Biny/Fish Lake and the lands and waters poisoned and destroyed for short-term gain. We want to see it preserved for our lives, for our children, and for our grandchildren after them.

We all say ‘No’ to this mine and the destruction of the land and our clean water resource. Petition

Call for Ban on Sour Gas and Unconventional Natural Gas Extraction

British Columbia Environmental Network Proposed Resolution

“WHEREAS extensive environmental and health damages are being caused to the Residents of Peace River Area, their animals, their water and their livelihoods by sour gas wells, pipeline malfunctions, and leaks due to the sour gas industry,

“WHEREAS extensive environmental and health damages are caused by horizontal drilling and high pressure hydrofracturing gas extraction techniques due to the contamination of water, soil and air by the toxic chemicals used in drilling and fracturing, and the naturally occurring toxic chemicals brought to the surface from deep in the ground,

“WHEREAS these environmental and human and animal health damages will have damaging economic consequences on agricultural and residential property use and value, and on farming, tourism, forestry, and ecological and educational businesses,

“WHEREAS the infrastructure costs of building and repairing roads, water treatment facilities, and other public services would far exceed any economic benefit to local communities, and

“WHEREAS it is yet to be proven that the green house effects of the production and use of natural gas produced by horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing are any less than those of the production and use of coal when the life cycle emissions of natural gas production and the higher impact of methane as a green house gas are taken into account.

“Be It Resolved that the British Columbia Environmental Network calls on the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia to enact a ban on permitting sour gas wells on Peace River Farmland and on unconventional gas extraction that uses horizontal drilling and hydro-fracturing to release gas from sand or shale formations."


UNESCO designation sought for Burns Bog

Why? Peat bogs store and filter 10% of the world's fresh water. Carbon dioxide emissions from peatland exploitation are estimated to be 3 billion tonnes per year. Preservation and restoration of peat bogs can reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 10%

Stop South Fraser Perimeter Road Petition

Despite being widely regarded as the lungs of the lower mainland, trees are being cut and commercial developments are being built. Highways may soon run through it. Draining has not stopped. The Conservation Covenant is not doing its job. To all of those who oversee the Burns Bog Ecological Conservancy Area Management Plan, realize what is being destroyed: vital wildlife habitat as well as your own environment. Although Mother Nature is very generous, her supplies are not endless. By continuing to act against the objectives set out in the Management Plan, you are taking away your own clean water. You are actively polluting the air that you breathe and destroying rare and endangered plant and wildlife species. Please keep your promise and Protect our bog.


Alexandra Morton fills Qualicum Civic Centre
Petition to Protect Wild Salmon



Inspired perhaps by the standing ovation she got in the Qualicum Beach facility before she even began, Morton delivered a strongly worded indictment of the effects fish farms are having on wild salmon stocks in B.C. and the world over.

It would be nice if fish farms and wild salmon could co-exist, she said, for the sake of the people working the farms, but the science shows it can't be done. The wild salmon, which she called the lifeblood of the west coast, won't survive unless open-net farms cease to operate.

Closed-containment farming on land can work, in her view. The winner of a recent court case which wrested authority over fish farms out of provincial hands and placed it in federal jurisdiction, the author of five books and seven papers, Morton said an "enormous army" of people have taken up the cause of wild salmon and made the difference, and "their very biology depends on us now."

She urged people to write their MPs relentlessly to oppose fish farms, which have depleted natural fish stocks in Norway, Ireland and Scotland as well as in Canada. The legal victory, which cost $100,000, is just another step on the way, she said. "It's really now or never. This is not a dress rehearsal. These (wild) fish are going down," she said. "But we can turn it around."

Morton lives in Echo Bay in the Broughton Archipelago, near Port McNeill, surrounded by about 22 fish farms which she has documented are harming wild salmon stocks. Her home has become a stopping point for various marine researchers. She raised her children there and has lived in that wilderness setting since about 1980.

Sandhill Crane Nest Exchange - PacificWild.org

Sandhill Crane - Click For Video


A New Coal Mine for the Comox Valley?


Company unable to answer questions about how much water it would take to wash metallurgical coal, or where the company plans to get the water.


Home of world famous Fanny Bay oysters

About 140 bird species have been recorded at Fanny Bay. The tidal areas are visited by many waterfowl, shorebird species, bald eagles and osprey. Spring herring spawns attract sea lions to Fanny Bay on Vancouver Island. California and Steller's sea lions come to the area around Boyle Point to feed on huge schools of herring found in Baynes Sound during the winter. The Steller sea lion has attracted considerable attention in recent decades due to significant, unexplained declines in their numbers over a large portion of their range. Steller sea lions are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The mine would increase not only future GHG emissions by unsequestering 44 million tons of carbon over its projected operation, but if allowed, would have a massive and deleterious impact on the biodiversity and watertable of the entire region.



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