CBC.  The Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline faces a key decision this week as the National Energy Board is expected to say whether it approves the proposed project.  The board, which regulates parts of Canada’s energy sector, is expected to release its decision sometime this week on whether the $16.2-billion pipeline being proposed in the Northwest Territories would be in the interests of all Canadians. … "Certainly we’ll be looking for a favourable decision on the pipeline," said Fred Carmichael (NGP Photo) of the Aboriginal Pipeline Group, which represents three N.W.T. aboriginal groups that have negotiated a one-third stake in the pipeline.

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CBC.  The Nunavut government says it will fight a proposal by the United States to add ringed seals to its list of endangered species.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced last week that it wants to list ringed seals found in the Arctic Basin and the North Atlantic as a "threatened" species under that country’s Endangered Species Act.  NOAA said projections of melting Arctic sea ice, caused by climate change, pose a long-term threat to the species. It also cited the threat of reduced snow cover.  However, David Akeeagok, Nunavut’s deputy environment minister, said ringed seal populations in the Arctic remain healthy. He said the U.S. proposal is based on flimsy predictions about how the seals would
 

respond to changing sea ice conditions.  "Seals, polar bears, they’ve always been adapt[ing] to change of weather patterns," Akeeagok told CBC News on Wednesday. "This is … a long-term weather pattern change, and I’m sure that wildlife will be able to adapt to those changes."  Ringed seals are the main prey of polar bears, which were listed as a threatened threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2008.  Gabriel Nirlangayuk, wildlife director with Inuit land-claims organization Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., said the latest U.S. proposal for ringed seals is similar to the bid to make polar bears a threatened species, in that both are based on premature projections.  "A lot of people will be scratching their heads again," said Nirlangayuk, who argued that there are still plenty of ringed seas throughout the Arctic.  Should the proposal go through, the U.S. could impose subsistence hunting restrictions and more trade bans in order to protect the ringed seals.