By Stéphane Blais The Canadian Press
Posted September 19, 2023
Ten years after Quebec’s government wanted to launch oil and gas exploration on Anticosti Island, the picturesque territory in the Gulf of St. Lawrence has been added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The agency’s world heritage committee — which says fossil fuel exploration or exploitation is incompatible with heritage status — announced Tuesday that Anticosti Island is being formally recognized on the United Nations’s list of places with outstanding universal value to humanity.
According to UNESCO’s website, Quebec’s largest island is “the most complete and best preserved paleontological record of the first mass extinction of animal life, 447-437 million years ago.”
It says world-class scientists will be able to study what it describes as the “the best-preserved fossil record of marine life covering 10 million years of Earth history.”
At one time, however, the territory was considered a potential site for oil and gas, after the former Parti Quebecois government, in office between 2012 and 2014, gave its blessing for exploratory drilling on the island.
After backlash from residents and environmentalists, the next government, under then-premier Philippe Couillard, ended oil and gas exploration on Anticosti Island in 2017 to protect its natural character — and support the bid to make the territory a World Heritage Site. As a result, the province was forced to pay some $62 million to compensate the oil and gas companies, whose contracts were cancelled.
Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, who participated in the campaign for heritage designation before he entered politics, said the island helps scientists better understand how “climate change and rising sea levels at the time contributed to a decisive moment in history — the world’s first mass extinction of life on Earth.”
Hélène Boulanger, mayor of the municipality of Anticosti Island, describes the heritage designation as “the beginning of a new era” for the island, adding that its infrastructure needs to be improved to accommodate an expected influx of visitors.
Anticosti Island’s former mayor announced the bid for heritage status in early 2017, and the candidacy gained support from the province, the federal government and the Innu communities of Ekuanitshit and Nutashkuan.
“Anticosti Island is of great importance to our spiritual values, our identity and our culture,” said Jean-Charles Pietacho, the Innu Chief of Ekuanitshit, in a news release.
“The joining forces of our communities, municipal, regional, governmental and scientific, has allowed this recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.”
For its part, the province announced in 2020 that it would create a large nature reserve on the island to protect its biodiversity and further boost the UNESCO candidacy.
Anticosti Island becomes the 22nd Canadian site on the UNESCO list, joining places such as Wood Buffalo National Park, Gros Morne National Park, the Rideau Canal National Historic Site and Yukon’s Tr’ondek-Klondike. It’s the third UNESCO heritage site in Quebec, after Old Quebec City’s historic centre and the Miguasha National Park, on the Gaspé Peninsula.
Quebec's Anticosti Island named UNESCO World Heritage Site
Island's geology dates back more than 440 million years
One of Quebec's natural treasures, which holds ancient evidence of the first global mass extinction of animal life on Earth, is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Anticosti Island was officially recognized worldwide for its exceptional fossil assemblage by UNESCO's World Heritage Committee in Saudi Arabia Tuesday morning.
The island is a massive stretch of rocky land that is located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and is 17 times the size of the island of Montreal.
It is home to the most complete fossil record of marine life of Earth's history between 447 and 437 million years ago — a period that was not yet represented on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
There are currently more than 1,440 known fossil species on Anticosti Island from that time period. They demonstrate changes in global climate and sea level that caused the extinction of almost all ocean life on the planet.
The island's designation includes every fossil layer exposed along the coastline and some riverbeds.
"The site is protected from any development and industrial activity because it is entirely located within a network of strictly protected areas consisting of a proposed biodiversity reserve, a Quebec national park, and two ecological reserves," a Parks Canada statement of the decision reads.
Anticosti Island, despite its size, is home to only 200 residents. It boasts an abundance of deer, deep canyons, large waterfalls and numerous caves. Its new prestigious status was a long time coming.
Local officials had been pushing for the island to be recognized as a way to encourage tourists to visit and ensure its environmental protection in the face of a heated debate over oil and gas exploration, which began in 2013.
The Quebec government officially banned drilling on the island in 2017.
Anticosti Mayor Hélène Boulanger celebrated the designation in a statement Tuesday, saying it marks a new era for residents.
"This decision confirms that Anticosti Island is a unique place in the world, but above all, that it is essential to protect and showcase its exceptional jewels," she wrote.
Boulanger said the island's infrastructure now needs to be improved to accommodate an expected influx of visitors.
Anticosti Island is the third Quebec site to be added to the UNESCO World Heritage list, along with the historic district of Old Quebec and Miguasha National Park on the Gaspé Peninsula.
"This prestigious designation is the result of seven years of work and consultation with all our partners," said Environment Minister Benoit Charette in a statement.
"I would like to thank everyone for their sustained commitment."
Leaders from the Innu communities of Ekuanitshit and Nutashkuan, who in recent years have been greatly involved in the push to get the island recognized, were also happy with the news, noting it will raise the visibility of Innu culture in Quebec and internationally.
"It's been several years that we've been working with the people in the region... The oil industry was eyeing the island and they wanted to use fracking, which we contested," said Ekuanitshit Chief Jean-Charles Pietacho.
"It's one of the most beautiful islands... I was very touched, I'm very happy... We're protecting nature."
Pietacho said he's excited to see what other discoveries will be made on the island that his people have inhabited for millennia, now that it has this recognition.
"There is a spiritual link with the territory, it links us to the Earth and the island. That link is part of our culture, and to know it will protected by the world... It's not nothing!"
Anticosti Island is now one of nearly 1,200 heritage sites around the world and the 22nd Canadian site to be added to the list.
While it's ultimately up to Canada to ensure the conservation and management of Canadian sites inscribed on the list, UNESCO says independent international organizations will monitor the site to report on its management and protection.
with files from Radio-Canada's Lambert Gagné-Coulombe
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