Media Releases

Vancouver:  The largest marine debris recovery operation ever to be attempted in Canada got under way this morning, with the departure of the tugboat Westco Rogue from Campbell River. West Coast Tug and Barge is under contract to Living Oceans Society, which is co-ordinating a group effort to remove some 40 tonnes of marine debris, mostly plastic, from Vancouver Island’s rocky western shores. The tug is steaming for Cape Scott, where it will be met by a helicopter carrying Living Oceans’ Rob O’Dea, who will lead the team working to sling the debris from land to the barge.

Friday, August 5, 2016:  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

VANCOUVER – Northern Gateway opponents are celebrating a landmark court decision that strikes down the federal government’s approval of Enbridge’s controversial pipeline project.

Vancouver:  Living Oceans greeted with skepticism media reports that Natural Resources Canada had discovered that diluted bitumen “doesn’t sink as readily as conventional oil” when spilled into water “unless exposed to high temperatures and weathering”.

For Immediate release:  June 22, 2016 SOINTULA, BC:  A highly virulent fish disease has infected three salmon farms in Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island, near Gold River, just before wild salmon begin their migration back into the area to spawn. Nootka Sound is home to a popular and lucrative sport fishery for five species of salmon, including Chinook or spring salmon—the primary food of Orca whales.

VANCOUVER—The National Energy Board’s recommendation today in favour of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion comes as no surprise to Living Oceans, an intervenor in the process; but it leaves B.C. still without assurance that Premier Clark's five conditions for approval can be met.

VANCOUVER:  The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN), Ecology Action Centre, Living Oceans Society and the Quebec network Vigilance OGM are expressing concerns over Health Canada’s approval of the world’s first genetically modified (GM) food animal, a GM Atlantic salmon, for human consumption. “Canadians could now be faced with the world’s first GM food animal, approved with no public consultation and no labelling,” said Lucy Sharratt of CBAN.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE VANCOUVER—Groups are commending the federal government’s commitment to protect the north coast of British Columbia from oil spills with a tanker ban, and calling on the government to make it a permanent, legislated oil tanker ban. On the 27th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill that devastated the community of Cordova, Alaska and left Prince William Sound with an oily legacy that persists to this day, Sierra Club BC and Living Oceans Society say that a legislated oil tanker ban is the only certain way to protect B.C.’s north coast from a similar fate.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – February 2, 2016