About

The Beaufort Regional Environmental Assessment (BREA) is a multi-stakeholder initiative to sponsor regional environmental and socio-economic research that will make historical information available and gather new information vital to the future management of oil and gas in the Beaufort Sea.

BREA will help ensure governments, Inuvialuit, and industry are better prepared for oil and gas exploration and development in the offshore by 1) filling regional information and data gaps related to offshore oil and gas activities, and 2) supporting effective and efficient regulatory decision-making by providing the necessary scientific and socio-economic information to all stakeholders.

Through multi-party committees, BREA will address regionally-relevant scientific and socio-economic information gaps that will inform regulatory processes and project-specific environmental assessments related to oil and gas activity in the Beaufort Sea.

The key goal for BREA is to produce relevant scientific and socio-economic information that simplifies project-level environmental assessment and regulatory decision-making for oil and gas activities, while strengthening the relationship between environmental assessment and integrated management and planning in the region. The goal will be attained by

  • Developing an improved understanding of existing baseline scientific and socio-economic information and traditional knowledge for the region and identifying areas of limited knowledge.
  • Using targeted scientific environmental effects studies and monitoring programs to complement existing programs and fill identified gaps in knowledge.
  • Facilitating the management of regional environmental information related to oil and gas activities in the Beaufort Sea for all stakeholders through implementation of policies that recognize the contribution of regionally derived information in the regulatory process of project-specific applications.
  • Ensuring the baseline information will facilitate more efficient regulatory decisions in the offshore.