Protecting the Peel region strongly urged

After attempts to please everyone pleased no one at all, Peel planning commission chair Dave Loeks said the commission had no choice but to defer to the precautionary principle and protect the values mining interests would undermine.

After attempts to please everyone pleased no one at all, Peel planning commission chair Dave Loeks said the commission had no choice but to defer to the precautionary principle and protect the values mining interests would undermine.

Loeks made the remarks last night in Whitehorse at a public consultation on the recommended Peel Watershed Regional Land Use Plan.

Two distinct positions emerged from the raft of comments the commission has received on the issue, said Loeks: some value the region for its resource potential, and others believe the region has an intrinsic value and must not be disturbed.

The Peel land use planning process, which began in 2004, has pitted members of industry, who want more access to the region, against conservationists and First Nations, who are demanding maximum protection.

When presenters from Energy, Mines and Resources (EMR) produced an overhead graphic indicating several more phases before a conclusion is reached, it caused one attendee to mutter under his breath, “and when they finish this, I’ll be dead.”

From the mining industry’s perspective, future resource exploration in the region will die if the Yukon government accepts the commission’s recommendation that 80 per cent of the 68,000-square-kilometre watershed be off limits to mining and the remaining 20 per cent be accessible by air only (not including a small corridor bisected by the Dempster Highway).

An EMR-produced map of exploration activity in the Yukon as of August 2010 indicates exploration in the Peel watershed is virtually nonexistent, while the rest of the territory is pocked with projects.

And that’s just fine with conservation groups and First Nations, whose members and supporters were out in full force at last evening’s public consultation, held at the Yukon Inn.

More than 150 packed the hotel’s Fireside Room and hearty applause throughout – including two standing ovations – for pleas to leave the Peel as is made it clear the conservation side were in the majority.

A 2009 Yukon Conservation Society-sponsored survey indicated that 78 per cent of Yukoners believed the main priority in the watershed should be environmental protection.

Loeks said the planning commission based its recommendations on dictates from the Umbrella Final Agreement – the landmark 1993 document and foundation for aboriginal land claims and self-government in the Yukon – that land use planning should be guided by principles of sustainable development.

But Sandy Babcock, president of the Yukon Chamber of Commerce, called the Peel commission’s recommendations, “... a less than impartial product, inconsistent with the definition of sustainable development as defined in the Umbrella Final Agreement.”

Babcock, and later Michael Wark, executive director of the Yukon Chamber of Mines, spoke of the significant investment mining brings to the territory.

According to Wark, between 2000 and 2008, resource exploration in the Peel region contributed $48 million to the economy.

Wark warned that without adequate infrastructure for access to existing claims in the Peel, those claim holders will expect, “compensation when access is denied.”

When the planning commission was formed six years ago, it asked for a moratorium on staking, but the request was denied until the Yukon government finally halted claim staking at the beginning of this year.

Between 2004 and early 2010, mineral claims and other resource dispensations in the watershed rose from 2,500 to more than 10,000.

While Wark and Babcock insisted mining and environmental interests can coexist in the Peel watershed, representatives from the tourism industry and pro-conservation groups disagreed.

Blaine Walden, president of the Yukon Tourism Association of the Yukon, recalled a season when uranium
exploration in the Peel reached fever pitch, and the serene outdoor experience he promised rafting clients was shattered by helicopters and prospectors.

Mike Dehn of the Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society challenged the assertion mining could occur in a manner which would respect and protect the environment.

“Where has (this) happened in the world? Nowhere,” said Dehn, adding that with the Peel removed entirely from the exploration and development table, miners still had free staking access to more than 80 per cent of the territory.

“This doesn’t sound balanced to us,” Dehn said.

Karen Baltgailis, executive director of the Yukon Conservation Society, disputed the idea that complete protection of the Peel would hamper the mining here or hurt the Yukon’s economy.

“Yukon doesn’t need the Peel watershed to have a booming mining industry,” said Baltgailis, citing the $140 million the mining industry predicts will be invested in the Yukon in 2010, on par with 2007’s record year.

“We don’t have to (open the Peel to mining) to have a thriving industry or a thriving economy.”