Nouvelles des groupes

Malheureusement, Beth McLaughlin est décédée le 22 février 2015.

Depuis des décennies, Beth s’est révélée une force positive pour la communauté environnementale au Nouveau-Brunswick. Elle croyait fermement que c’étaient les actions des personnes qui pouvaient transformer le monde et elle pratiquait ce qu’elle croyait. Beth a fondé PANE (People Against Nuclear Energy) et le chapitre du sud-est du Conseil de conservation du Nouveau-Brunswick; elle est aussi la cofondatrice de SOS Water Sanqwan. En 2002, Beth a mérité le Prix Orca du RENB pour ses efforts inlassables dans la lutte contre la ville de Moncton qui voulait privatiser son système de distribution d’eau, et pour sa capacité de rallier des gens de divers milieux. En 2006, elle a mérité un deuxième prix du RENB, un prix spécial pour réalisations environnementales qui souligne son engagement passionné et inébranlable envers l’environnement et les gens du Nouveau-Brunswick, ainsi que son talent pour inspirer, motiver et former d’autres environnementalistes. Beth aimait beaucoup la vie et les jeunes personnes; elle a servi de mentor à plusieurs environnementalistes prometteurs au cours de sa vie.

Nous partageons la tristesse de la famille de Beth affligée par cette perte.

Une célébration de la vie de Beth aura lieu le mercredi 25 février à Moncton. Consultez http://www.funerairepassagefuneral.ca/obituary.asp?id=777#sthash.abjp2Rmh.dpuf pour plus de détails.


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Du Conseil de conservation du Nouveau-Brunswick:

In honour of Beth McLaughlin

New Brunswick has lost a fierce defender of our environment with the
passing of Beth McLaughlin on Sunday, Feb. 22.

Beth was on the Conservation Council board for years. She worked
tirelessly to make people aware of the dangers of nuclear power and she
was one of the key organizers who shelved the Jaakko Poyry
recommendations which sought to double the annual allowable cut in our
forest in the early 2000s.

Beth organized people around the province to ensure they attended the
hearings that determined the fate of our forest. She traveled across New
Brunswick and summarized what people had to stay at each hearing,
comments which were then used to defeat the recommendations. Even when
she became ill with cancer, Beth remained committed to protecting New
Brunswick's Acadian forest and to developing proposed legislation for an
Environmental Bill of Rights for New Brunswick. Her dedication and
service was honoured by the Conservation Council family when she was
presented with a Milton F. Gregg award for environmental activism in 2011.

Beth, a retired school teacher, encouraged her students to be active
citizens and to write letters to government. Beth earned a Masters of
Environmental Studies degree at the Université de Moncton in 2001. Her
thesis was on the topic of sustainable communities. Beth wrote a weekly
column for the Times & Transcript as well as plays and fiction with
environmental themes. She also ran an educational business focused on
sustainable communities with Françoise Aubin.

“From a young age, I always seemed to be aware of environmental issues,
if perhaps only in a peripheral way. My father loved to fish and he
would try to make weekly excursions to our family camp in the northwest
New Brunswick woods. We loved the outdoors,” Beth said as she recalled
the devastation caused by a spruce budworm outbreak and the widespread
spraying of insecticides over New Brunswick's forest in the 1970s,
during an interview for a story that honoured St. Thomas University alumna.

Beth was also a founding board member of Crossroads for Women, a shelter
for women and children living with family violence in Moncton.

Deepest condolences to her partner Helene, to our board members who were
such good friends of hers, and to all those who were blessed to know her
witty humour, tenacity and passion in the many fights that mattered.

Let's honour Beth's memory by renewing our commitment to protecting the
Acadian forest that she so loved and to building healthy communities in
this province.