Oil Sands Development Could Claim More Than 160 Million Boreal Birds

New Report Outlines Devastating Impact for Birds in U.S. and Canada

The extraction and refining of bitumen from Canada’s oil sands is taking a significant toll on migratory birds throughout North America, according to a new report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Pembina Institute and the Boreal Songbird Initiative. Danger in the Nursery: Impact on Birds of Tar Sands Oil Development in Canada’s Boreal Forest outlines the current and projected affects of the oil sands industry on migratory bird populations in Alberta’s boreal forest and along the Western Hemisphere’s flyways.

More information is available online from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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Nouveau! La fièvre des sables bitumineux en français

The Pembina Institute’s popular and informative Oil Sands Fever fact sheet is now available in French.

Cette fiche d’information fournit un vue d’ensemble des données présentes dans la publication de l’Institut Pembina “La fièvre des
sables bitumineux: Les conséquences écologiques de la ruée vers les sables bitumineux du Canada”.

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Pembina Institute Quits Multi-stakeholder Oil Sands Process

Report outlines key steps to restore credibility to environmental management

After eight years of effort, the Pembina Institute has formally withdrawn from the Cumulative Environmental Management Association (CEMA). Because of its consistent failure to recommend systems to protect the environment, CEMA has lost all legitimacy as an organization and a process for environmental management in the Athabasca oil sands region.

As a founding member of CEMA, the Pembina Institute worked hard to advance environmental management. Those efforts ultimately proved unsuccessful. The Government of Alberta’s ongoing approval of oil sands projects in the absence of sufficient environmental management — and its lack of senior leadership — fundamentally undermined CEMA’s mandate.

Recognizing the urgent need for environmental management and the benefits of engaging stakeholders, the Pembina Institute has put forward recommendations for a new approach to environmental management in the Athabasca oil sands. The new report, Taking the Wheel: Correcting the Course of Cumulative Environmental Management in the Athabasca Oil Sands, lays out a path for developing environmental management systems through a new, reconstituted multi-stakeholder process.

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» Read the media release