Tides Canada Foundation

This grant to Tides Canada Foundation would provide additional resources to the Tides Canada Oil and Gas Fund, a donor-advised fund established by Hewlett to help curb the development of tar sands in Alberta and its associated infrastructure in British Columbia, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. Tar sands production is already the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, and it is projected to account for nearly half of Canada's total emissions growth. Mining and drilling of the heavy oil also threatens to contaminate groundwater and to destroy hundreds of thousands of acres of pristine boreal forest. The areas of focus for this grant include (1) increased protections from oil and gas development for landowners and First Nations in Alberta; (2) improved capacity of community activists in the region; and (3) scientific research to determine the health risks to communities associated with tar sands development. This grant advances the Foundation's western conservation outcome of reducing the impacts of fossil fuel development on $85 million high priority acres and the climate change outcome of stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions.