Wednesday, March 10, 2004 – NEWS RELEASE

Proposed Jumbo Pass Ski City would become a Grizzly death trap says Wilderness Committee: Bugaboo Rainforest National Park is better option for future

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada – The Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Canada’s largest membership based environmental organization reiterated the group’s strong opposition to a proposed 7,000 bed ski resort city in the high alpine of Jumbo Pass, near the little West Kootenay town of Argenta. The BC Liberal Cabinet is scheduled to make a decision on whether or not to give the go-ahead to the meg-project by September 2004. The government is currently in the midst of a public input process which will close April 12, 2004.

Since 1989, when it was first proposed, over 6,000 Kootenay residents have registered their opposition to the $1/2 billion project.

“We didn’t want to leave anyone with the opinion that only local people strongly oppose this terrible wildlife wasting project,” said Joe Foy, Campaign Director of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. “Our organization strongly opposes the proposed Jumbo Pass Ski City too, and we are very concerned that the BC Liberal government is rushing to push it through, despite the public being against the project. We base this on our experience with the BC Liberal’s Working Forest Initiative, which had well over 90% opposition during the public input process, but the Libs continue to barrel ahead anyway,” said Foy.

Western Canada Wilderness Committee has over 25,000 members from across the country with the largest segment right here in BC.

“Unfortunately, many of our members, won’t be able to attend the government sponsored open house events about Jumbo Pass in Inveremere and Nelson, because they don’t live there,” said Foy. “But the grizzly bears and mountain goat populations that this proposed project would decimate if it were to go through, is a treasure belonging to all British Columbians and in fact is a national heritage belonging to all Canadians,” said Foy.

In 2002 the Wilderness Committee launched a campaign to see the federal government designate 500,000 hectares of Kootenay wild country including the Jumbo Pass area, as the Bugaboo Rainforest National Park, in order to protect the area’s outstanding biodiversity and wilderness values.

“The proposed Bugaboo National Park would link Glacier National Park in the north to the Purcell Conservancy in the south, greatly increasing the chances of long-term survival for this area’s beleaguered wildlife populations,” said Foy. “That’s the kind of development we should be looking at – not this ski city that will act like a great big grizzly sink hole,” Foy said.

To read more about the proposed Jumbo Pass Ski Resort City and to learn who you can write to in order to join the public input process, go to the Valhalla Wilderness Society web site. Click on their Jumbo Disaster for the Kootenays report to download it.
The Valhalla website is: http://www.savespiritbear.org/

To see information about the proposed Bugaboo Rainforest National Park go the Wilderness Committee web site at: http://www.wildernesscommittee.org/campaigns/rainforest/inland/bugaboo/…

-30-
For more information contact Joe Foy – Office Tel: (604) 683-8220 Cell tel: (604) 880-2580