Lelu Island is the traditional territory of the Gitwilgyoots  clan, one of the Tsimshian nations of Lax Kw'alaams. The clan, speaking through their spokesmen, Simoyget Yahaan (Don Wesley) and Ligitgyet Gwis Hawaal (Ken Lawson) have declared their complete opposition to the project and have initiated what is now an ongoing re-occupation of Lelu Island to prevent survey work in support of the facility , which has involved regular evictions of Petronas-employed workers from the territory.

To an outsider, First Nations politics in Canada can be very confusing, and this confusion is itself used strategically by industry.  There are parallel governments for First Nations: the traditional 'hereditary' system  and the imposed colonial Indian Act band councils.  The Canadian Supreme Court, in the 1993 Delgamukw ruling established that the hereditary leadership is the proper authority in cases like the Tsimshian, where no treaty was ever signed surrendering sovereignty.  Still industry and government attempt to work through band councils (or whoever will be coopted) in 'Divide and Conquer' tactics.  The current Indian Act government of Lax Kw'alaams is headed by a family that is heavily invested in oil and gas expansion and has given their approval to Petronas, which government and industry use to attempt to represent themselves as having necessary First Nations buy-in. The Divide and Conquer tactics run deep.

-- update... on July 25, 2017, Petronas announced that it would no longer be pursuing the project, a victory for salmon, the Skeena River, Gitwilgyoots, and the people of BC!  Now resistance is moving to the parallel Chinese Aurora LNG project on neghboring Digby Island.  This is the other primary proposed LNG export facility in the area, representing a parallel threat to the salmon of the Skeena.

CO2 Emissions: Petrons's Pacific Northwest LNG would annually emit between 11.5 and 14 megatonnes, including upstream emissions

The plant has been demonstrated in the company's own tidal flow models to destroy the critical eel grass salmon habitat of the Flora Banks, one of the largest salmon rivers in the world. 90% of salmon leaving the Skeena spend their transition phase in the Flora Banks. Between 300 million and 1 billion juvenile salmon leave the Skeena each year, and 3 million to 10 million adults return each year.

(Note, the "100,000 people affected" to the right is a ballpark number of the people who have direct connections in terms of food, business, or identity to the salmon of the Skeena River. The actual number of people affected by this project is much larger, in terms of both impacts on the salmon and impacts on climate change, among other impacts.)