Canada’s pristine western coastline could be endangered by a plan to build a new oil pipeline from Alberta to the coast in order to export oil overseas, say environmental activists and native people who rely on these waters.

Oil company Enbridge plans to link the oil sands of Athabasca, in central Alberta, to the port town of Kitimat in British Columbia, with a new pipeline that would carry 525,000 barrels of oil to the coast per day.

There’s just one problem: the pipeline would pass through watersheds important to Canada’s commercial fishing industry and brush past Coastal First Nations lands and the Great Bear Rainforest, a protected coastal area filled with red cedars, spruce, and the elusive all-white “spirit bear.”

While the Northern Gateway pipeline itself wouldn’t pass through the 4.4-million-acre (1.8-million-hectare) Great Bear Rainforest, activists say it’s a little too close for comfort.

Read the rest at NationalGeographic.com