Group concerned over Ring of Fire – by Carl Clutchey (Toronto Star – March 10, 2022)

https://www.thestar.com/

An alliance of five First Nations in the remote Ring of Fire mineral belt says it’s still waiting to hear whether the federal government will re-think how it assesses potential environmental impacts in an area it considers “the world’s lungs.”

At the end of January, chiefs of the Attawapiskat, Eabametoong, Fort Albany, Kashechewan and Neskantaga First Nations wrote to federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault to express concerns that they are being left out of the proposed review process, including its terms of reference.

“We (have) voiced our deep concerns . . . for the region we know as the breathing lands, in which there is a push to develop a massive mining complex in the Ring of Fire,” the chiefs said in their letter to Guilbeault.

“These are the world’s lungs, and rampant mining development could not only destroy this globally critical carbon sink, but release its huge storage of carbon and escalate climate change into catastrophe.”

For the rest of this article: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2022/03/10/group-concerned-over-ring-of-fire.html