VANCOUVER – The Wilderness Committee is overjoyed at the final decision issued this week by Canada’s Environment Minister, stating that Taseko Mines Ltd.’s proposed New Prosperity Mine is not authorized to proceed.

In an announcement Wednesday evening, Minister Leona Aglukkaq confirmed that the federal government had considered the report of the independent Review Panel, and concluded that “the New Prosperity Mine project is likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects that cannot be mitigated.”

“This decision comes as an incredible relief to all those who have wanted to see Fish Lake and the surrounding Tsilhqot’in Nation territory protected from this proposed mine project,” said Joe Foy, the Wilderness Committee’s National Campaign Director.

VANCOUVER — Hearings are set to continue Thursday in a case to determine whether the government of British Columbia is bound by law to protect the province’s endangered old-growth Coastal Douglas-fir ecosystem.

“This ecosystem has been nearly wiped out by logging practices and now the province has a legal obligation to preserve what little is left,” said Devon Page, Ecojustice Executive Director. “We’re here to make sure B.C.’s forestry laws are upheld, for the sake of the forest and the many wildlife species that rely on it.”

Ecojustice lawyers are representing the Wilderness Committee and ForestEthics Solutions in this lawsuit, filed in B.C. Supreme Court in May 2013. The Coastal Douglas-fir forest once dominated an area covering approximately 2,600 square kilometres. But after decades of logging, the B.C. Forest Practices Board estimates that only 1,600 square kms still remain. And according to government data, only about 2.75 square kilometres — an area smaller than Stanley Park — remain in old-growth condition.