Our support for the Beaver Lake Cree Nation

The Co-operative has been championing the cause of the Beaver Lake Cree since February 2009. We see the Beaver Lake Cree’s challenge as perhaps one of the last and best hopes we have to stop the expansion of the tar sands.

Here’s a run down of our support for the Beaver Lake Cree to date:

The Co-operative Bank, Insurance and Investments, announced the results of its Toxic Fuels Customer Vote. As a result of the vote, donations were made to charities working to ‘support First Nations’, ‘protect endangered wildlife’ and ‘inspire UK activism’. Amongst these donations, the RAVEN Trust received a further £23,000 to support the Beaver Lake Cree’s legal challenge and the David Suzuki Foundation received £32,000 to fund a wildlife impact assessment within the Beaver Lake Cree’s traditional territories. The study will assess the impacts of tar sands developments upon the now endangered Woodland Caribou.  

The Co-operative Bank, Insurance and Investments organised a press trip to visit the Beaver Lake Cree Nation and Albertan tar sands, with a BBC film crew, the Press Association and Ecologist magazine. The trip also attracted a great deal of press attention in Canada for the Beaver Lake Cree’s plight. At the their annual pow-wow we announced the first donation to a new charitable trust set up to support their legal case (the RAVEN Trust). The donation of £53,000 (C$100,000) will help fund the legal case’s first injunction, planned for early 2010.  

Chief Al Lameman and other senior members of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation visited the UK in February, as our guests, to highlight their plight and help support the launch of our Toxic Fuels campaign. Read more about the launch. At the launch, The Co-operative Bank, Insurance and Investments announced a donation of £50,000 to fund the filming of elder depositions, which will document the Beaver Lake Cree’s traditional way of life and the impacts tar sands developments are having upon the Cree and their ancestral lands. Some of the resulting video will be used in court and some on this campaign website, and they will also act as a historical record documenting a culture and a community under threat.

The Co-operative has every confidence that the Beaver Lake Cree will eventually win their legal case, but they need as much support as possible to make this happen.

Support the Beaver Lake Cree and help stop a potential climate and local ecological disaster:

• Donate to the Beaver Lake Cree– a charitable trust has been set up to support their legal challenge to stop further tar sands expansion
• Spread the word – tell your friends, family and colleagues to join this campaign and support the Beaver Lake Cree
• See the destruction for yourself - and how tar sands developments are destroying the Beaver Lake Cree’s traditional lands.

Relevant links:

• Beaver Lake Cree Nation
• RAVEN Trust
• David Susuki Foundation