NRDC's President, Frances Beinecke, traveled last July to the Peace-Athabasca Delta  BioGem in Alberta, Canada.  She wrote in her blog about the visit that:

All four major bird flyways in North America converge in one spot in the boreal, right here. More than 1 million birds, including tundra swans, snow geese and countless ducks, stop to rest and gather strength in these undisturbed wetlands each autumn. For many waterfowl, this area is their only nesting ground.

I could see how this winding mass of waterways, which it seemed only our Dene guides, Joe and George Marcel could navigate, provide the perfect habitat on the trip north.

Rounding a corner in our boat, we surprised a moose, which disappeared into the reeds before we got a closer look, an eagle flew overhead. Then, as dusk fell at 11:00 in this northern landscape, we watched beavers speed downriver with the current.

Canada and the international community have recognized the importance of the Delta with its inclusion on the United Nations List of Wetland of International Importance.  Yet the Delta is  threatened by tar sands oil extraction and other development along the Peace and Athabasca Rivers.  As my colleague Susan Casey-Lefkowitz writes here, tar sands are particularly devastating to the environment, as low grade oil, bitumen, is power washed from sand and clay for oil production.  This intensive process emits three times more carbon than conventional production processes. 

Since 2005 NRDC has vigorously battled the development of tar sands projects downstream from the Delta.  We have called on the American and Canadian governments to take a stand against these short-sighted schemes.  Now the wildlife must also be protected from abrupt changes in their environment caused by the warming climate, to which tar sands oil production and use are a contributor:

• Due to increasing temperatures the snow and ice will melt more rapidly, resulting in fewer ice-jam floods. Ice-jam floods are crucial to the structure of the delta and fertility of the soil, because jammed ice causes nutrient rich water to flood the land, creating small lakes and ponds that provide important habitats for aquatic life.
• Fewer flooding events results in fewer nutrients needed to support the valuable communities of fish living there. These fish are one staple food that migratory birds depend on for survival. Warmer temperatures may cause insects to emerge earlier in the spring - before the birds arrive. Without the fish and insects, the variety of birds coming to the Delta will not have enough to eat. (See my colleagues' report Danger in the Nursery about Boreal birds.)
• Climate change also challenges food-hoarding birds such as the Gray Jay. Gray Jays store food during the winter months to feed their young in the spring, when food is less plentiful. However, warmer temperatures prevent this stored food from freezing in the autumn and so it spoils, leaving Gray Jays with no food for their young or themselves.

The exploitation of the tar sands threatens the Peace Athabasca Delta now and could make it even more difficult to deal with climate change in the future.  So please join NRDC and 350.org in participating in the International Day of Climate Action on October 24th.