Cumulative Effects of Resource Development
We see it all around us. Northern British Columbia is undergoing huge changes in terms of natural resource development. As Greg Halseth and Marleen Morris of the Community Development Institute at UNBC point out, the scale of the changes are comparable to the industrial transformation that happened after the Second World War in British Columbia where, like today, natural resource mega-projects and initiatives played a key role.
What kind of natural resource development is taking place today in northern BC? The list is a long one. Mining (coal, metals, minerals), oil & gas (conventional and unconventional such as that derived from fracking), proposed Site C dam, run of river projects, wind and solar power projects, transmission lines, seismic lines, pipelines, proposed LNG plants, forestry harvesting and processing, recreational tourism, and so on.
But what are the cumulative effects and impacts of all of these developments on the environment, communities and health of the people who live here? That was the topic of a two-day event organized in Prince George on January 10 & 11 by UNBC and funded by the BC Oil and Gas Commission. Speakers included representatives from First Nations organizations, municipal government, and three UNBC research institutes: Natural Resources and Environmental Studies Institute (NRESI); Health Research Institute (HRI); and Community Development Institute (CDI).
Resource development can, of course, bring a wide range of positive things such as jobs, higher incomes, and vital economic development for communities in the region. But there can also be unanticipated, sometimes negative impacts, as a result of “cumulative effects” that creep up unnoticed or unaddressed.
Speakers at the two day meeting dramatically brought home the importance of these “cumulative effects” by displaying maps of specific territories in northern BC. For example, in one instance, a researcher showed a topographical photo of a forested area in the north east region which, on the surface, looked relatively undisturbed. Then he laid down a grid showing forestry cutblocks where clearcutting had once taken place. This was followed by another grid showing logging, as well as oil & gas roads. Then grids showing well sites, seismic lines, transmission lines, pipeline corridors, and other industrial projects. By the time he finished laying down the various “grids” of disturbance, the forested area was transformed into an unrecognizable scramble of lines, squiggles and dots that would clearly have a significant effect on wildlife, water, and other features of the landscape.
The point was not to speak out against any or all of these natural resource developments in themselves, but to show that when combined they can result in overall cumulative effects that, unless planned for or mitigated in some way, can reach thresholds or “tipping points” beyond which irreversible change takes place in the environment, communities, and the quality of health in human populations.
Glaring examples of thresholds being reached include the mountain pine beetle infestation and the decimation of the Oolichan fish run on the northwest coast, both of which were the unintended result of a number of cumulative factors in natural resource industrial development. But this development can also have cumulative effects and impacts on communities and the health of individuals.
For example, resource development can mean jobs for First Nations communities, but also can result in major disruption of their land base and traditional occupations like hunting and fishing. As a First Nations speaker from Fort Nelson pointed out, one of the cumulative impacts of oil and gas activity is that her people no longer feel welcome on their own land, one of the reasons being that private security guards from oil and gas companies stop them and demand identification. In addition, they no longer drink the water in the bush or utilize plants for traditional medicine because of the pollutants from shale gas, fracking and other industrial activity. In her estimation, in the last 7 years, 80,000 km of roads, pipelines, and seismic lines have been laid down in their territory (which is under Treaty 8), along with hundreds of wells.
Resource dependent communities often experience dramatic boom and bust cycles that result in cumulative effects and impacts. These can take on different forms whether the community is undergoing a boom (housing shortage, pressure on health and other infrastructure) or bust (unemployment, poverty, loss of tax base, shut down of services). Problems are exacerbated because communities have few avenues to access the large amount of resource revenues generated through royalties, stumpage, rents and taxes, as control of these revenues lies with the provincial government.
One particular example is transportation. Taking into account that highways and roads in many parts of the north are not equipped to handle increased large truck traffic (limited to two lanes with narrow shoulders), coupled with ice and snow conditions, wildlife hazards, and so on, the cumulative impact is more serious accidents and increased pressure on health services. Another example are fly-in work camps which pose new problems, such as pressure on the services of nearby communities without necessarily contributing to the local tax base or increased social problems such as problematic substance use or disruption of families, which again put pressure on services.
One of the ideas coming out of the two-day meeting was the need for researchers, governments, communities, resource workers and corporations to collaborate and take a more holistic approach to addressing the effects of natural resource development in the north. The environment, communities, and health of residents are not areas to be “siloed” off from one another, but must be looked at in their interaction and combined cumulative effects. This approach aims to mitigate the impact of these cumulative effects and minimize their unanticipated outcomes so that the mistakes and disasters of the past can be avoided.
For its part, the provincial government has undertaken some pilot projects looking at cumulative effects in certain areas of the province. However, from what the government has said so far, some questions are left hanging: (1) Who will decide and monitor cumulative effect “thresholds”? (2) Will action be taken beforehand to avoid unintended consequences? (3) What role will northern communities, First Nations, researchers and scientists have in making these and other natural resource decisions?
Peter Ewart is a columnist and writer based in Prince George, British Columbia. He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca
Comments
Cumulative effects …. an interesting notion. In other words, integrated development.
“so that the mistakes and disasters of the past can be avoided”
Which exactly are those?
The paths of those who used our waterways? Those who created portages from one waterway to another? Those who built the railway? Those who built towns? Those who cut down trees, sawed them into boards and sent them south? Those who mined for gold, hunted for fur bearing animals? Those who built roads to connect towns that were not connectable by waterways? Those who built airstrips and allowed planes to fly overhead? Those who dammed rivers, built transmission lines and sent electricity south? Those who built huge plants to process the harvested wood? â¦â¦ we could go on and on about the state of the union now and the state of the union in BC 150 years ago. How about the state of the union back east â¦. 1500 â¦. 1600, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2000?
What are we talking about here anyway? By whose standard are we assessing our developments? Whose lifestyles are we making worse? Whose lifestyle are we improving? What part of nature will not come back if we were to leave this province for 100 years and let it return to the wild?
BTW, the MPB infestation was not exactly the result of a number of cumulative factors in natural resource development. While we control fire to a degree, which can have the effect of increasing the survival rate of insects, we do not control climate quite yet, which was a major factor in the spread of the MPB.
The fact of the matter is that like all animals on this earth, we humans find habitats in which we can survive and build our nests and use the surrounding resources.
When we reach a population threshold, we start to die off.
So, was there anyone at the conference who spoke about what that population threshold might be for this province and this part of the province?
I ask that because based on other countries in the world, we sure are underpopulated.
One of these days other in the world will recognize that and may just start doing something about it.
In fact, I think that started happening more seriously in the 19th century in BC. People from the rest of the world discovered this area and realized it was underpopulated by their standards and took it over from the indigenous people found here when they arrived.
Now there is a new push under slightly different circumstances. Nevertheless, it could have a similar effect of altering the current population’s lifestyle …. for the better? … or for the worst?
So long as all financial ‘costs’ can’t be recovered FULLY in ‘prices’ in EACH successive stage of production/consumption, there will always be a push to try to mortgage the consumer ‘incomes’ of the future to pay for their shortfalls of purchasing power in the present and the past.
This can’t help but lead to a largely artificially induced assault on the environment as we do things we otherwise would not find it ‘physically’ necessary to do to satiate any genuine human need at this time.
And we do them, now, solely to distribute sufficient ‘financial’ incomes to pay AGAIN that which has already been fully paid for ‘physically’. Only our present method of accounting is not set up to record it that way.
Under such a set-up a good deal of what we hope to gain as ‘wealth’ is really going to end up as no more than ‘waste’.
Do we really have to repeat the object lessons afforded us in the past before we realise this?
Do we have to over-produce everything and glut all those global markets we were hoping to capture to the point where we’ll again do as was done in the Great Depression of the 1930’s?
Where our, and a good many other countries’ over-production was openly wasted by actually destroying it in an effort to “keep the price up” when those who often did need and want it couldn’t pay any price for it? Let alone one which could come close to recovering its financial ‘costs’?
“Under such a set-up a good deal of what we hope to gain as ‘wealth’ is really going to end up as no more than ‘waste’.”
Let’s face it socredible …. everything in this world ends up as waste eventually ….. just a matter of time.
This is a fair and balanced article, thank you 250news! Just one more reason why I enjoy this news site.
No doubt about it, traditionally, First Nations had minimal impact on the environment. Being semi-nomadic in nature, they would move into an area according to the migratory patterns of the animals / food sources they relied on.
In the summer / fall; they would setup seasonal camps at the confluence of the area’s rivers (i.e. sturgeon point where the Nechako and Stuart rivers meet). They would harvest the migratory salmon they needed for the winter and move on.
In the winter – spring First Nations people would setup their camps near moose / caribou / elk calving grounds. All of these animals are migratory, and so were the First Nations people.
Cumulative impacts on local environments started when the fur trading posts became established, and even more so, when First Nations people were forced off their lands and placed onto reservations (reserves). Forced to live in one place year round, they were no longer semi-nomadic.
In the past their hunting and gathering impacts on the fish, animals and plants (environment) was minimized because they would take a little here, move on and take a little somewhere else over a large territory⦠today First Nations call it their “traditional territory”.
Living in one place had, and is having, immediate cumulative impacts on the “local environment”. However, those cumulative impacts are, and remain, “local”. But then we get to corporate industry and “economies of scale” natural of resource extraction and use. Today, the majority of northern BC’s environment is undergoing huge cumulative impacts from multiple industries and sectors that are able to extract resources, using the latest technologically , on a truly massive scale.
A healthy discussion and debate about “sustainable” natural resource extraction is long over-due!
In reality another reason early Asian immigrants where nomadic , when every living thing was killed with in easy walking distance of camp. A little reported fact of the Shuswap of which I have family heritage.
Gus a piece of information I came upon awhile back. On the sunshine coast there where more people living in that area before European settlement than now. Deases decimated the early population.
Another impact of these industries is on our City. People with equipment that could be used for snow clearing on city streets are finding better ways to make money using their equipment in the resource development industry. I understand that the City cannot find enough equipment to put out on our streets for snow clearing.
Comments for this article are closed.