In this special episode created for the podcast show RAVEN Debriefs, I bring together recordings from the Athabasca river with voices from Indigenous land & water protectors and members of the Canadian organisation 'Keepers of the Water'. After decades of extracting bitumen (a thicky form of crude oil) in Northern Alberta, the toxic wastewater from the mining activities is starting to become a problem...
But the federal and provincial governments of Canada, together with industry, have a solution: they want to change domestic law to legalize the release of the tailings ponds (the residual wastewater from the mining operations) into the Athabasca river. This river directly feeds into the Mackenzie River Basin, which is known as the Amazon of the North: the largest watershed in Canada and the most intact large scale ecosystem on the continent.
🎤 Hear from Melody Lepine, Tori Cress, Daniel T’seleie and Paul Belanger, as they all shared their concerns as part of a press conference at the latest UN biodiversity conference -COP15- last December in Tio'tià:ke, Montreal. The press conference organised by Environmental Defence Canada and Keepers of the Water.
🐦 The more-than-human voices are the Athabasca river* and various animals recordings provided by the sound library of the Yellowstone National Park, as many species are also endemic to the Wood Buffalo National Park, of which: red-winged blackbird, Wilson's snipe, warbling vireo, bald eagle, western meadow lark, common loon, savannah sparrow, sandhill crane, bison and wolves. https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/photosmultimedia/soundlibrary.htm
What can you do to support?
1. https://www.keepersofthewater.ca/tar-sands-tailings-ponds
2. https://act.environmentaldefence.ca/page/122490/action/1
Music credits by Holizna CC0, Soft and Furious, and Loyalty Freak through the Free Music Archive.
*Recorded in August and December 2022, produced in March 2023 by Louise Romain.
/Additional info about organisations involved/
- The Canadian organisation RAVENTrust raises funds for Indigenous People's access to justice. - Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.