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Background on Royal Duch Shell.

The wave of foreign takeovers of Canadian corporations is setting off alarm bells in Ottawa and in corporate boardrooms across Canada. The feeding frenzy has already consumed Canadian mining giants such as INCO and Falconbridge, steelmaker Dofasco and even iconic brewer Labatt. Alcan and BCE are in the cross hairs and Bombardier is worried. While CEO’s, pundits and politicians sound the alarm about the long-term impacts on the Canadian economy, Royal Dutch Shell’s takeover of Shell Canada raises these as well and potential environmental and human rights concerns.

When Royal Dutch Shell’s directors took the reins of Shell Canada earlier this month, they inherited a brewing resource conflict in a remote corner of British Columbia that bears a striking semblance to Royal Dutch’s difficulties in other parts of the world.

Shell’s coalbed methane drilling has ignited a conflict in a remote watershed north of Hazelton off Highway 37, where the first trickles of three magnificent rivers originate. The creation legends of north western First Nations, name the shared beginnings of the Nass, Stikine and Skeena Rivers as the place the world began. Hence the area’s local name: the Sacred Headwaters.

A magnificent landscape full of wildlife, it is the territory of the Tahltan people, who have hunted and trapped there for generations.

The Sacred Headwaters also happens to contain one of British Columbia’s largest coal deposits. And where there is coal there could be coalbed methane, gas trapped in coal seems and held in place be massive amounts of often toxic water. The BC government, with little or no consultation with local people, sold Shell Canada – and now Royal Dutch Shell – drilling rights to explore for coalbed methane in the Sacred Headwaters.

Shell moved quickly. Three years ago, they unceremoniously bulldozed an access road through a Tahltan trapper’s camp in the heart of the headwaters before most Tahltan knew the Sacred Headwaters was threatened. With their equipment in place, Shell quickly drilled three exploratory wells.

The swiftness of Shell’s actions, combined with the lack of discussion with local people, outraged many Tahltan. While the Tahltan had some familiarity with mining, (because of the nearby Eskay Creek gold mine) they had little experience with the oil and gas industry. As they learned more about the impacts of coalbed methane drilling, the growing grassroots opposition of farmers, ranchers and First Nations to coalbed methane in Alberta, Montana Wyoming, seemingly (wherever it is being produced) they became concerned. The more they learned the more the concern became determination to protect their territory from the threats posed by the invasive drilling, the often toxic water produced, the massive footprint of roads, pipelines, power lines and compressors that run 24/7/365.

After the initial test wells were drilled, locals began asking Shell for information about the potential impacts on water, wildlife and other resources important to their culture. Shell provided little information.

The next flashpoint in the Tahltan’s struggle with Shell occurred in 2005, when four Shell Canada employees came to the band office in the small Tahltan village of Iskut. There, they were greeted by a group of Tahltan elders and children wearing regalia, beating drums and carrying signs saying, “Stop Shell”…”Save our land”. It wasn’t the welcoming ceremony they expected. The elders gathered and read the Shell employees a notice evicting Shell from their territory. The local chief, Louis, quietly asked that Shell, “please go away…leave us alone.” The Shell representatives quickly got back in their truck and drove away.

While the eviction of Shell was a unified demonstration of Tahltan power, there also exists a deep internal struggle within this northern nation. In the face of an unprecedented northern mining and energy boom, the Talhtan are scrambling to balance potential economic development with threats to their lands. They are working hard to reconcile internal divisions between those pro-development forces and those who see the current scenario as simply too much, too fast. Compounding all this are the all-too-common tensions between the hereditary, family-based system and the elected band system.

The eviction forced Shell to cancel follow up drilling plans for that season. Yet they continue to pressure various Tahltan organizations and leaders for support, threatening to resume drilling each summer. So far Shell has been unsuccessful, opposition to Shell and coalbed methane remains strong and once again Shell was forced to cancel last summer’s drilling program rather than risk conflict.

The potential backlash against Shell escalated last summer when First Nations, concerned citizens, environmental groups gathered in the Sacred Headwaters to celebrate its importance to northern native cultures. David Suzuki, Wade Davis and other well-connected figures joined the Tahltan, Haida, Wet’suwet’en, Gitxsan, Taku River Tlingit, Haisla, and Tsay Keh Dene by pledging to “protect the land from unwanted resource development …to defend our headwaters, wild, beautiful and sacred forever.”

But Shell continues to push there plan to drill in the Sacred Headwaters. Shell’s latest proposal involves the company conducting a limited exploratory drilling program in exchange for a set of undisclosed concessions. There initial drilling indicated the potential for thousands of wells in the area. However, despite ongoing negotiations with some Tahltan representatives, local opposition remains strong. The Iskut elders, who are resolute in their opposition to the project moving forward, are unlikely to accept more drilling.

So far Shell Canada has proceeded cautiously in Tahltan country, wary of the damage media showing First Nations grandmothers being dragged away by RCMP could do to its already tainted corporate image. It remains to be seen whether Royal Dutch Shell, who obtained the drilling tenure as part of the takeover of Shell Canada, will be as cautious.

After all, Royal Dutch has a reputation of engaging in – and even exploiting – deeply divided indigenous communities. For example, in Nigeria, as in BC, an aggressive expansion of oil and gas drilling is being implemented despite unresolved indigenous claims. The decades-long violent conflict between Shell, the Nigerian government, and the Ogoni people that has severely tarnished Shell’s international reputation.

In 1995 the Nigerian military executed anti-Shell activist Ken Saro-Wiwa (allegedly with Shells complicity). The killing of the renowned environmental-human rights activist sent shockwaves around the globe, inspiring anti-Shell outrage that led to massive consumer boycotts of the petroleum giant.

Shell role in the Nigeria crisis is well-documented. A leaked internal report Shell commissioned in 2004 states, “We sometimes feed conflict by the way we award contracts, gain access to land and deal with community representatives.” It’s an admission that does not bode well for the Tahltan.

While BC resource conflicts look tame next to the violent political environment of the Niger Delta, the temperature is rising in BC’s North. Tahltan elders blockaded the main access road into the Sacred Headwaters both in 2005 and 2006, preventing access by two mining companies (Fortune Minerals and bcMetals), who wanted to drill in the Sacred Headwaters. Both non-violent protests delayed drilling for months and led to arrests.

Because many of the blockading elders are peaceful grandmothers, physical violence is unlikely. But Tahltan elders fear Royal Dutch Shell will perpetrate another kind of violence. If the company pushes forward with its project before the Tahltan have decided upon a land-use plan for their territory, it will undoubtedly result in more blockades, arrests, and the upheaval of a fragile community. At a time of year when Tahltan families hunt moose and fish for salmon, they will be instead be fighting drilling operations – camping not in the alpine headwaters, but at the blockade site at the junction of Ealue Lake Road and Highway 37.

There are other deeper, more disturbing social consequences, for a village that already suffers from high rates of drug and alcohol abuse and suicide. With the social fabric already stretched, the turmoil caused by Shell and various mining companies – the boom economy they promise and the inevitable bust they de-emphasize – pushes the community closer to a total social breakdown.

But the Tahltan are not alone. Shell’s activities in northern BC are beginning to draw international attention. In addition to David Suzuki and Wade Davis, environmental organizations are beginning to engage. The day Royal Dutch took over Shell Canada, One Sky, the Canadian Institute for Sustainable Living, released a report entitled When Gas Explodes, explicitly drawing the Nigeria-BC link.

And people from around the world are clicking on YouTube to see documentary video Dogwood Initiative recently released entitled British Columbia: Nigeria North? The video is generating lots of interest. And we are just getting started.

Local opposition, international spotlight combined with growing grassroots opposition to coalbed methane in communities throughout BC, poses escalating challenges for Shell, the BC government and other coalbed methane proponents. Just south of the Sacred Headwaters, the residents of the Bulkley Valley, including the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, have waged an effective and populist campaign against a proposed coalbed methane field adjacent to the village of Telkwa. Protests against the project have seen over 600 people take to the streets of Smithers (in a town of only 5,000 people). The Wet’suwet’en and Bulkley activists have received support from the Tahltan elders and are likely to reciprocate should the Tahltan call on them.

Perhaps Royal Dutch Shell was unaware of the potential conflicts they inherited? Were Royal Dutch Shell’s directors briefed on the conflicts developing in the Sacred Headwaters? Or did Shell Canada simply unroll the BC Ministry of Energy and Mines’ coalbed methane resource map and point to the shaded area indicating 8 trillion cubic feet of coalbed methane?

We will never know.

In the best of circumstances, coalbed methane creates potential for explosions. In the early days of coal mining, coalbed methane – then known as firedamp – was much feared by coalminers. This odorless, invisible gas sometimes surreptitiously collected in mineshafts, causing fatal explosions with a single spark. To warn them of this threat, miners took canaries underground with them. If the birds died it served as a clear sign of danger.

There is no canary to indicate the imminent danger in the Sacred Headwaters for Royal Dutch Shell directors. So they have a choice: attempt to go into the Sacred Headwaters with no canary and risk an explosion or in the face of the escalating attention, to do the right thing and give up their coalbed methane tenure.

The choice is theirs. Proceed cautiously.

By Will Horter

Dogwood Initiative