To protect and conserve wildlife and habitats in Canada by engaging people and advocating on behalf of nature.
Parks and Protected Areas - Suffield National Wildlife Area
Breaking News -- Suffield missing from critical habitat identification for Burrowing Owl
Nature Canada and our partners are concerned by the federal government's overlooking critical habitat within CFB Suffield National Wildlife Area in the proposed recovery strategy for the endangered Burrowing Owl. Read the press release for more details.
Instead, land use decisions are being made without identified critical habitat, despite there being sufficient information available. That's not a recipe for recovery but for extirpation.
Nature Canada and our partners are urging the federal government to revise the proposed recovery strategy to identify all critical habitat for the Burrowing Owl, including at Suffield. We also continue to call on the government to accept the recommendations of its environmental assessment panel and reject EnCana's - now Cenovus - proposed project to drill 1,275 gas wells in Suffield National Wildlife Area. All National Wildlife Areas should be safe havens for wildlife, not subject to industrial development.
Explore this web page to learn about Suffield, where we stand on drilling inside Suffield, and to take action in defense of nature in Alberta.
Suffield National Wildlife Area near Medicine Hat, Alberta. Home to nearly 100 plant and animal species at risk of extinction. And 1,275 shallow gas wells and 220 km of pipeline if a proposed drilling project is allowed to proceed.
The Government of Canada established an NWA within the Canadian Forces Base at Suffield in 2003, and just two years later a proposed drilling project by energy giant EnCana Corp. threatened - and continues to put at risk - one of the last remaining large intact pieces of pristine prairie grasslands in Canada.
Nature Canada supporters have already raised their voices in alarm over this potentially precedent-setting development. No permit of this kind has ever been granted inside a national wildlife area in Canada, and in hundreds of letters you told the government that’s the way it should stay. Keep up the pressure!
Thanks to your letters, we convinced the government to conduct a full and public review of the proposed drilling project. This was an important first step, but the future of Suffield is still in doubt.
Public Hearings
Public hearings were held in October 2008. Thanks to your letters and support, Nature Canada was successful in convincing the panel to reject EnCana's plans. Read our press release for our initial response, or read Panel Decision: Summary and Analysis for a brief synopsis for more details.
Nature Canada poses the following questions regarding plans to develop inside Suffield National Wildlife Area:
If Canadians cannot expect 16 federally listed species at risk to find safety inside a national wildlife area, where in the world can we expect our endangered species to exist in peace?
Can Canada allow expanded drilling operations inside a protected area like Suffield NWA and still meet its international conservation commitments as laid out in agreements like the Convention on Biological Diversity?
Does Canada really want to set the dangerous precedent of granting a permit for development inside a federally protected area, and risk rendering the very concept of “protected area” meaningless?