The UK's Co-op banking and investment group is paying £50,000 ($71,000) to fund a legal action in Canada that could block the development of the country's oil sands by companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and BP. The money will be used to fund evidence-gathering for the case being brought by the Beaver Lake Cree nation, an aboriginal community in Alberta, the province where the oil sands industry is based. The Beaver Lake Cree argue that their rights to hunt, fish and gather plants in the area, granted by treaty in 1876, have been violated because of pollution created by oil sands developments.