Fortune Minerals ends summer field programme amid protests
TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Fortune Minerals on Monday voluntarily ended its summer field programme in the Klappan region of British Columbia (BC) to help the provincial and Tahltan First Nation governments resolve issues around the Arctos anthracite mine project.
Tahltan elders and community members have disrupted work at drill sites for the project's environmental assessment.
On Sunday, a group of 40 Tahltan members and elders entered Fortune’s exploration camp on Mount Klappan. They asked workers to leave the area and for all work to stop immediately.
Fortune said it remained fully committed to developing the Arctos project, but would voluntarily cease activities in the field for several months as a "show of good faith".
BC Mines Minister Bill Bennett travelled to the camp on Saturday to listen to the protesters' concerns, after last week reaffirming the province’s support for the project and appointing Geoff Freer to act as an intermediary to facilitate dialogue between the Tahltan First Nations and Fortune Minerals.
The First Nation had rejected Freer, saying it was a unilateral move by the provincial government to force the project through to production.
The protesters have said they are willing to be arrested to protect the Klappan, as more than a dozen were in 2005, when the fight was over Shell's coalbed methane exploration.
As a result of that, the BC government established a permanent moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the Klappan, but it did not extend to mineral extraction.
Fortune insisted it was exercising its legal rights and the Tahltan and others would have the opportunity to question and comment on the Arctos project through the environmental assessment process.
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