APTN is reporting that a Houston-based energy company that has faced ferocious resistance from a Mi’kmaq-led coalition is ending its shale gas exploration work for the year.
Elsipogtog War Chief John Levi said on December 6 that the police had informed him that SWN Resources Canada is ending its exploration work, but will return in 2015. Levi said SWN and its contractors would be picking up geophones from the side of the highway today. Geophones interact with thumper trucks to create imaging of shale gas deposits underground.
“They are just going to be picking up their gear today,” said Levi. “At least people can take a break for Christmas.”
Demonstrations against the company and its plan to carry out hydraulic fracturing or fracking in New Brunswick escalated recently, and has seen displays of support across Canada and even abroad.
See full story HERE.
Whether or not the decision to pull out was due to what the company claimed was the finishing of their immediate work, is unclear. SWN said in a statement on December 6 that it had completed its “seismic acquisitions program in New Brunswick.” The company, however, was silent on its future timeline for returning, according to APTN.
This development follows earlier clashes between protestors and police, examined in the Al Jazeera news analysis below.
As Al Jazeera said:
On October 17, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided a protest site set up by Mi’kmaq people and their supporters trying to prevent a Texas-based corporation from fracking. The company had received rights to explore for shale gas by the province of New Brunswick. The raid carried out by police, with dogs and automatic weapons, turned to chaos as residents of the Elsipogtog First Nation arrived to confront them. Police pepper sprayed the elders and fired sock rounds to control the crowd. Six police vehicles were set ablaze, and some 40 people were arrested.
It was the most spectacular eruption yet, of a struggle led by indigenous people to protect the land they say they have never ceded and water they consider sacred – a struggle that grew quietly for three years, and shows no sign of slowing down. Fault Lines travelled to New Brunswick to ask why their fight caught fire, and find out what happens when Canada’s First Nations say no to resource extraction projects they oppose.
