Canada Native Groups Join to Protect Water Supply

CALGARY, Alberta – Booming oil and gas development in Western and Northern Canada has prompted native groups to build a united front to better protect the vast region’s water resources, aboriginal leaders said on Thursday.

About 200 First Nations representatives from Alberta, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories gathered in Fort Simpson, N.W.T., this week for a three-day conference on how to stem worsening water quality and diminishing supplies as a result of industrial development.

It was hosted by Deh Cho First Nation Grand Chief Herb Norwegian, who is holding out against the C$7.5 billion (US$6.8 billion) Mackenzie Valley pipeline that would cross his people’s land.

As many as 60 aboriginal groups live on a huge watershed that encompasses much of the oil- and gas-rich provinces of Alberta and British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, Norwegian told Reuters by telephone. The resource is considered sacred in native cultures.

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