The Yukon government has its first policy in place to protect wetlands, with the aim of sustaining some of the territory’s most ecologically sensitive lands from human activity.

The policy was announced at a news conference Tuesday.

Ministers Nils Clarke and John Streicker, alongside government staffers, told reporters the new document will help determine how development around wetlands is conducted so that bogs, fens, marshes, swamps – and their biodiverse, carbon-storing benefits – are preserved.

“The policy will protect sensitive wetlands while allowing for sustainable and responsible resource development,” said Clarke, the  territory’s minister of Environment.

The policy lays out these protections broadly. Clarke said that’s by design, so that it can apply to any human activity that might 
impact wetlands.

An outline, included in a government release, said the policy’s goals are to:

• guide government land and water managers, as well as industry, through developments around wetlands;

• make stewardship of these lands consistent in land-use planning processes; and

• help the Yukon Environmental and Socio-Economic Assessment Board make consistent recommendations.

Wetlands are essential to maintaining water flows, flood protection, purifying water, recharging and discharging groundwater, and are a habitat for fish and wildlife, the release further states.

The 32-page policy document outlines four classifications for protecting wetlands, which it calls a “mitigation hierarchy.”

If development or any human-led project could impact wetlands, it should be moved to another area or avoided altogether, according to the policy.

If cancellation or relocation aren’t options, the document says, industry needs to limit its impact on wetlands, like restricting a project’s roadways and foot traffic through these lands, or reducing planned pollution.

Reclamation work must then be done to “recover wetland benefits and ecological characteristics within impacted areas.”

Reclamation of wetlands, the policy states, helps minimize human impacts, but cannot fully restore lands to their original states.

If avoidance, reduced harm and reclamation don’t work – in other words, if human activity is permitted on wetlands even though damages can’t be minimized or restored – the last measure is what the document calls “offsetting.”

The document isn’t specific on what offsetting would look like, saying only that guidelines for “acceptable wetland offset approaches will be developed” and these measures should only be considered as a last resort.

Streicker, the Energy, Mines and Resources minister, said Tuesday that further research, conducted in partnership with the government, Indigenous communities, other governments and industry, will help inform how reclamation, offsetting and other components of the policy are implemented.

“If, through our research,” he said as an example, “we find out that there are ways of reclaiming an area, which would enhance carbon storage, that’s important to know, because then we could get that into the hands of industry.”

Streicker noted that such research could help make placer mining less harmful to wetlands.

The impacts of placer mining on wetlands is a contentious issue that helped bring about this new policy.

To find gold, placer miners sift through rocks at the bottoms of streams and river beds. That can, among other things, disturb water quality and potentially release carbon stored in wetlands. 

As the now-finalized wetland policy was being drafted over the past few years, the Wildlife Conservation Society of Canada has voiced its opposition to mining in wetlands for these reasons.

Additionally, a November report from the Canadian Parks and Wildlife Society (CPAWS) warned that projected placer mining work in the Indian River watershed could release immense amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the next century.

Streicker pointed out Tuesday that the CPAWS report itself acknowledges that its research wasn’t conducted by experts, and the wetlands research that will follow the release of the new policy will be more informative.

The Klondike Placer Miners Association (KPMA) also refuted the report back in November.

Still, the new wetlands policy is meant to address very real environmental concerns around wetlands disturbance and ensure future stewardship of these areas.

Brooke Rudolph, the executive director of KPMA, emailed a comment from the association’s board to the Star today.

The board said it’s pleased to have the new wetland policy, adding it gives “real opportunities for industry to support and contribute to scientific research around wetlands.”

The board said it believes the placer mining industry will be a part of the solution in terms of future development and historical reclamation.

“There are polarizing beliefs around the placer industry, that tends to work near or in wetland areas, and we believe that transparent science-based data collection and sharing will be crucial to understanding what is happening, what is not happening, what is possible, and tangible ways to do things better,” the board said.

“The KPMA believes that working in and around wetlands is possible, while maintaining water quality, quantity and flow.”

The Star reached out to the Yukon Chamber of Mines for comment, but did not receive a response.

Research will also include mapping wetlands and creating a “wetland inventory” for the territory in the next five years.

Beyond the “mitigation hierarchy,” the wetland policy acknowledges that some wetlands, by virtue of their unique ecological characteristics, require special protections.

The government will create a new land designation for “wetlands of special importance” to ensure human activity has no present or future impact of any kind on these lands.

Wetlands nominated for this special designation will be reviewed for criteria like their environmental benefits, ecological characteristics and cultural significance to First Nations.

The policy states that activity such as mineral staking, exploration and mining within these specially protected wetlands isn’t necessarily off- limits.

But companies will need to demonstrate beforehand how work done in these areas won’t result in any wetland loss or reduction.

Any approved work in these areas would be subject to a number of stringent conditions.

The policy doesn’t change any existing private property rights, nor does it supersede any land use plans that are already in place, should one conflict with anything in the new document.

The policy will apply to all wetlands where the government has decision-making authority and to all land uses and resource sectors.

Streicker said the government has spent more than five years developing this policy.

It was crafted with input from First Nations governments, transboundary Indigenous nations, municipal and federal governments, boards and councils, industry representatives, non-governmental organizations and the public.