The cruise ship industry is also a huge potential liability . . . there are sometimes six ships, longer than oil tankers, holding 45,000BBl of hydrocarbon fuel, plying those waters.

And they all do it with a tiny fraction of the safety and navigation equipment that would be used by Endbridge Oil tankers.

We also have to think about the environmental risks of the proposed LNG pipelines, terminals and ships that for some bizarre reason the Aboriginal support. An LNG explosion would produce staggering quantities of CO2 and further poison our atmosphere.

To say nothing of the fact an LNG explosion would kill thousands of people, the very people needed to clean up the environmental mess.

So let’s be straight and just ban all shipping in Haida Gwai. This pristine area needs to be uber protected. Environmental justice demands it.

I suspect that the primary legal challenge to the tanker route will come from Gitxaala – of all the various intervenors Gitxaala has singlehandedly submitted written evidence the scale of which is more normal in a rights and title case. Which, ultimately, is what the gateway project will become.

The tanker route passes through some of the most amazing marine waters of teh BC coast. I’ve been there many times – in fact, I grew up there. But it’s not just a nature wonderland, it’s the cultural and historical heart of the Gitxaala Nation. Over the course of many years I have conducted field reserach with Gitxaala and within Gitxaala territory. This is a difficult area for most people to get to. One needs a boat and the time to move.

What we have documented is an amazing richness of cultural heritage. Ancient villages more than 4,000 years old; tidal stone traps and modifications of the foreshore that demonstrate millennia of use and management by Gitxaala people. This all could be lost by one simple human error or machine breakdown. And for what? feeding the bank accounts of the 1% and building the industry of China’s rising capitalist class. The rest of us stand to lose a priceless cultural and ecological treasure.

We can’t repeat the mistakes we made in fighting Global Warming. Way too much fear mongering about everything being bad wears thin after awhile and we must have a message of hope, not “something bad may happen”.

Keep up the good fight.