From: Stephanie Autut [sautut@nirb.ca]
Sent: February 26, 2009 3:34 PM
To: 'Leslie Payette'; 'Jeff Rusk'; 'Ryan Barry'
Subject: FW: Uravan Mineral Garry Lake Proposal

Follow Up Flag: Follow up
Flag Status: Red

One more for the collection…an American to boot!!

 

From: Jason Little [mailto:littlej@nhecwb.com] 
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:34 PM
To: sautut@nirb.ca
Subject: Uravan Mineral Garry Lake Proposal

 

Dear Stephanie:

 

I am not really sure who to send this email to, so I am emailing you, given your leadership role on the Nunavut Impact Review Board. 

 

I am not an Inuit, nor even a Canadian citizen. I am an American, who had the opportunity to canoe the Kazan River from Kasba Lake to Baker Lake last summer. Nunavut is a very special place. I view your landscape as one of the last vast sanctuaries on this planet that  I can visit, view remarkable wildlife, and know I am welcomed by your kind-hearted people. I am so saddened by the mineral exploration and mining operations that are changing the landscape, and perhaps even having a negative impact on the great caribou herds of Nunavut. I fully realize the economic advantages in the short term, but I view the short term gains as losses in the long term.  For me, the great caribou herds of Nunavut are much like what I imagine the great buffalo herds must have been like a few centuries ago in the lower 48.  I know Inuits have a proud ancestry linked to the caribou, and I would be very sad to see mining companies continually chip away at wide-open spaces, especially ancestral caribou calving grounds. It is my understanding that the proposed Uravan Minerals uranium project is just south of Garry Lake, and is located in such a vicinity. I sincerely hope the NIRB deny this project, due to the stresses on the Beverly herd, whose numbers have dwindled, and rely on these sacred calving grounds for survival.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Jason Little

Marlow, New Hampshire

U.S.A.