Nault praised for approach to protected areas
Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (May 23/01) - Environmentalists emerged from their first-ever meeting with a Indian Affairs and Northern Development minister with hearts filled with hope.
"It was a really nice dialogue," said Bill Carpenter of the NWT chapter of the World Wildlife Fund Canada
"He's a sincere, positive person is how I'd describe him."
A year ago, Carpenter was far less complimentary. He accused the government of reneging on its commitment to support development and implementation of an NWT protected areas strategy.
Two months into the fiscal year, the federal government had provided no funding for the strategy.
DIAND eventually provided some funding, but funding delays and cutbacks for northern environmental and conservation projects was the central issue of the Monday afternoon meeting with Nault.
Carpenter and Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society NWT spokesperson Greg Yeoman told Nault the difficulty of planning work on environmental initiatives without knowing how big a budget there is to work with.
"I believe from what the minister said there's going to be some multi-year funding," Carpenter said.
Also attending the meeting were Chris O'Brien of Ecology North, Canadian Arctic Resources Committee research director Kevin O'Reilly (by telephone), DIAND regional director general Bob Overvold, Nault's executive assistant Derek Teevan and, for part of the meeting, Western Arctic MP Ethel Blondin-Andrew.
In addition to dragging its feet on protected areas strategy funding, the federal government has come under fire from environmental groups for providing little or no money for the development of a cumulative effects management framework.
Aboriginal leaders criticized the federal government earlier this year for providing only $450,000 of the $780,000 DIAND's regional office had requested for this year's work on the cumulative effects framework.
The development of a system for monitoring cumulative effects was one of the conditions Nault attached to his approval of the Diavik mine.
