The Conservative government has quietly begun looking into the charitable status of environmental groups in the Senate.

Senator Nicole Eaton is sponsoring an inquiry into what she calls "funding by foreign foundations." Eaton began her debate Tuesday by laying out what she considers to be a threat to the Canadian economy.

"This inquiry is about master manipulators who are operating under the guise of charitable organizations in an effort to manipulate our policies for their own gain," she said in the Upper Chamber.

Environmental groups don't see it that way.

"My fear is that they will just try to smear us and then walk away," said John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada. "And that they're hoping to frighten off U.S. foundations from supporting us... And they're going to try to turn off the public from supporting us."

The Conservative government has quietly begun looking into the charitable status of environmental groups in the Senate.

Senator Nicole Eaton is sponsoring an inquiry into what she calls "funding by foreign foundations." Eaton began her debate Tuesday by laying out what she considers to be a threat to the Canadian economy.

"This inquiry is about master manipulators who are operating under the guise of charitable organizations in an effort to manipulate our policies for their own gain," she said in the Upper Chamber.

Environmental groups don't see it that way.

"My fear is that they will just try to smear us and then walk away," said John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada. "And that they're hoping to frighten off U.S. foundations from supporting us... And they're going to try to turn off the public from supporting us."

A team of scientists from the University of Oxford are working on a world map which shows all the land owned or revered by various world religions. This "holy map" will display all the sacred sites from Jerusalem's Western Wall, to Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, to St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

Just as interesting, the map will also show the great forests held sacred by various religions. Within these protected lands dwell a wide variety of life and high numbers of threatened species.The sacred land mapped out by the Oxford researchers is not necessarily owned by a certain religious community, but rather contains sacred connotations.

They estimate that about fifteen percent of all land on Earth is "sacred land", and eight percent of all land is owned by a religious community. Much of the land held sacred is forest.

St. John’s, NL– Sierra Club Atlantic is calling on the federal and provincial Ministersto reject the Lower Churchill project in response to the final report of the environmental assessment panel for the Lower Churchill project.

“We were disappointed that the Panel did not state the obvious and give clear advice to government,” according to Bruno Marcocchio, who participated as an expert at the Panel Hearings, “However, the fact that Nalcor could not demonstrate the need for the Lower Churchill means both governments should be taking a big step back and puttinga halt to this project before we get in any deeper.”