THINK I'LL GO OUT TO ALBERTA.
SCOTT HARRIS / scott@vueweekly.com
Greenpeace and its ilk set up shop to battle oilsands
Opposition to the Alberta oil sands got a boost this August when international environmental advocacy organization Greenpeace opened the doors of its Edmonton office, becoming the first of a number of well-known environmental organizations to officially set up shop in Alberta to take on increased development in the north of the province.
Both World Wildlife Fund Canada and Sierra Legal Defence Fund are also in the process of establishing offices in Alberta, and many more organizations with international clout and deep pockets are ramping up campaigns specifically targeting the oil sands.
Mike Hudema, Tar Sands Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace Canada, and one of two staff in the new Edmonton Greenpeace office, said the global ramifications of the problem in northern Alberta is the reason his group, and others, are starting to focus on the province.
“You’re looking at a project that single-handedly will mean that Canada can’t meet its international obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, which really does put the entire international process around climate change in jeopardy,” he explained. “So we’re here because of the national and international significance of the tar sands project.”
While the Athabasca oil sands have been in production for longer than Greenpeace has existed, Hudema said the project has only become an international issue recently because the price of oil and new technology mean that more of the oil sands can now be economically developed, causing companies to move in at an unprecedented rate.
“It’s really only in the last few years that you’ve really seen the viability of the entire tar sands coming on stream,” he said. “You’re looking at a project that will destroy or disturb 23 per cent of Alberta directly—so an area the size of Florida is basically going to be displaced if all the tar sands are actually brought on line. The impacts from that, especially from an environmental point of view, are massive. So I think that you’re seeing more and more groups realizing the scope and severity of what’s going on with the tar sands development.”
According to Hudema, it’s that recognition that has recently compelled not just environmental groups but a range of organizations working on social issues to get involved.
In Canada, the Ottawa-based Polaris Institute, which has focused on globalization issues for over a decade, recently launched its own oil sands-focused energy campaign, the Tar Sands Watch. South of the border, everyone from Rainforest Action Network—who has started campaigns targeting the banks that finance oil sands development—to Environmental Defense and Ralph Nader-founded Public Citizen have come to see the fight in Alberta’s north as critical to their own campaigns on trade, higher emissions standards and developing sustainable energy in the United States.
This sudden increase in international attention, and the support that comes with it, is welcome news to Alberta’s home-grown environmental community, which has been trying to draw attention to the problem of the oil sands for years.
“I think it’s great,” said Rocky Mountain House-based environmental activist Martha Kostuch, who has worked on environmental issues in the province for 30 years. “We need all the help we can get.”
While Kostuch is quick to point out that environmental activists in Alberta have long had the support of national organizations, she’s relieved that many are finally starting to take a more direct interest in the province.
“Those groups have been participating, but it’s good that they’re recognizing that they need to increase their presence in Alberta because our problems keep getting bigger,” she said. “They’re recognizing that this is where the action is.”
According to Myles Kitagawa, the Associate Director of the Toxics Watch Society, a group which has been active in the province since 1986 and opened its first oil sands file in 1995, the national and international attention is not only welcome but is critical to reigning in the pace of oil sands development.
“The international dimension of it is so important because we’re being driven by forces that, really, local interveners, local governments just can’t respond to if, for example, this is all being driven by demand for transportation fuels in the United States,” he said. “We’ve just recently started to see front page attention coming from the United States. I think the importance of that is so much greater than us being able to negotiate mitigation strategies with Petro-Canada, let’s say, because the work we’re able to do within the regulatory system in Alberta does nothing to stem some of the broader-scale economic drivers which make this development go as crazy as it is.”
Kitagawa is hopeful the resources and reach of groups like Greenpeace will complement the work groups like his have been doing for years by bringing the debate to a broader audience.
“They’re going to be able to inform the opinion of the rest of the world in a way that us local groups have not been able to do,” he predicted. “And because this is an export commodity, it’s the opinion of the rest of the world that we need to influence.”
How exactly these organizations will accomplish this lofty goal is still being determined, according to Hudema’s Greenpeace co-worker, Geeta Sehgal, who along with Hudema has been spending a lot of time talking to organizations already operating in the province to see how they can best build on what has already been accomplished locally through years of organizing.
Still, Sehgal believes it’s likely the province will start seeing some novel approaches. “Greenpeace has the resources to do really good direct actions that are visible and iconic and attention-grabbing and make a big difference to the people who are causing the problem and the people who are deciding whether or not to go ahead with the projects,” she said.
Sehgal, an Edmonton native, thinks people here are ready for the type of actions that Greenpeace and groups like it are likely to bring despite Alberta’s conservative reputation.
“The political climate here is conservative in that people don’t want to rock the boat unnecessarily. But now it’s necessary,” she argued. “The problem is getting to the point where it’s necessary to go a little further than consultative processes because the government is not listening.”
Kostuch agrees that, even though they may be new in Alberta, these tactics are a necessity in light of the problem.
“The direct action style we haven’t seen a lot of, at least not by environmental activists,” she agreed. “As long as it’s lawful action, I think there’s value in a whole range of actions—everything from adversarial all the way up to a collaborative approach. In fact, you can’t succeed in a cooperative or collaborative approach unless you have politicians’ attention, industry’s attention and the public’s attention. So I think they very much complement each other.”
This emerging cooperation between local groups and national and international players gives Kitagawa hope that progress on the oil sands will be made in the coming years.
“I expect everything to get kicked up a notch,” he said. “I’m not just hopeful, I believe that’s going to happen. Whether or not we’re ultimately successful, this is a fight that’s got to be fought.”
While Sehgal hopes her efforts will mean she’s out of a job sooner rather than later, she recognizes that it’s more likely that the work of Greenpeace in Alberta will take a while. But, she said, now that the organization is here, it’s committed to seeing the fight through.
“We’ll be here as long as the problem’s here.”
