ALBERTA, CANADA — First the bugs began to disappear.
Eriel Deranger, spokesperson for Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation says that was only the beginning. Her small community of Fort Chipewyan is increasingly affected by the expansion of the world’s third largest crude oil deposit, the Athabasca tar sands of Alberta, Canada.
In the last decade, the town of Fort Chipewyan in northeastern Alberta has witnessed its caribou herds threatened with extinction, a decline in the numbers of migratory birds, and elevated rates of certain types of cancer. ...