As the World Heritage Committee releases its report on the Flathead River Valley, Sierra Club BC and partners are calling attention to impending plans for clear-cut logging, quarrying and other threats to this lush valley.

"We're alarmed that it's business as usual in the Flathead, with the exception of large-scale mining and energy development," said Sierra Club BC spokesperson Sarah Cox.

Read our press release.

The World Heritage Committee meets July 23 to August 3 in Brasilia, Brazil. During that time the committee will release a long-awaited report from a September 2009 mission to the Flathead. Read the Globe and Mail article.

Get to know the Flathead better - watch our video.

The report comes after Sierra Club BC and 10 other U.S. and Canadian conservation groups successfully petitioned the World Heritage Committee in June 2008. Our petition was heard in June 2009 and the committee voted unanimously to send a mission to the Flathead to investigate threats posed to the adjacent Waterton-Glacier World Heritage Site by B.C.'s land use plan for the Flathead.

We are hopeful that the World Heritage mission report will recommend a comprehensive transboundary wildlife management plan that would protect the Flathead and adjoining habitat. Increased public scrutiny and pressure led to a February 2010 ban on mining and energy development by the B.C. government. Read about the ban here.

In a June 2010 letter to the World Heritage Committee, Sierra Club BC and partners said we “remained concerned” by the lack of a binding Flathead agreement at the federal level, since either B.C. or Montana can at any time revoke commitments made in the February 2010 Memorandum of Understanding. The letter also said that the conservation groups are concerned by “insufficient monitoring and reporting by the state parties” of continuing threats to the World Heritage Site, as requested last year by the World Heritage Committee.

The Flathead River is so pure that scientists use it as a benchmark to measure water quality in other rivers. Photo: Michael Ready, iLCP.

In addition to the on-going mining threat, the Flathead remains under threat from large clear-cut logging operations with extensive road building that are planned in the Flathead starting this summer, and motorized road access in the Flathead that was recently increased next to the World Heritage Site. On-going concerns also remain about the long-term viability of regional grizzly bear populations.

Photo: Garth Lenz, iLCP

At the regional scale, two new coal strip mines in the adjoining Elk Valley and new coal exploration in the proposed Wildlife Management Area also pose a serious threat to wildlife connectivity. Learn more about current threats to the Flathead.

Sierra Club BC, along with partner organizations, is urging the B.C. government to work with Ottawa, Montana and Washington to protect the Flathead permanently. Let Harper and Campbell know you support a national park in the south-eastern one-third of the valley and a wildlife management area in the adjoining habitat.