Panel seeks staking ban for most of Peel

A review panel has recommended that most of the Peel River watershed region in northeast Yukon Territory be withdrawn from industrial use, including mineral resource development.

In long-awaited recommendations, the Peel Watershed Planning Commission is seeking to ban mining activity in 80 percent of the 68,000 square kilometers, or 26,255 square miles, that comprises the Peel watershed region.

The Peel area is one of eight regions for which mineral-rich Yukon Territory is developing land use plans. It is located north of Mayo in northeast Yukon Territory.

The commission is an arms -ength panel with members jointly nominated by the Yukon government and the governments of four First Nations. The commission's goal for the Peel watershed plan is to ensure wilderness characteristics, wildlife and their habitats, cultural resources, and waters are maintained over time while managing resource use. These uses include, but are not limited to, traditional use, trapping, recreation, outfitting, wilderness tourism, subsistence harvesting, and the exploration and development of nonrenewable resources.

Achieving this goal requires managing development at a pace and scale that maintains ecological integrity, according to the commission. The long-term objective is to return all lands to a natural state as development activities are completed.

After four years of deliberations, the six-member commission came up with recommendations Dec. 2 that differ substantially from a draft plan that it issued in April. The commission said responses to the draft "made clear that the conflicting visions for the Peel Planning Region were intractable and that its compromise approach satisfied no one."

As a result, the commission said it focused instead on measures to minimize actual and potential land-use conflicts, and to recognize and promote the cultural values and well-being of "Yukon Indian People" by crafting "a conservative, cautious plan that preserves the maximum degree of future options for society."

The plan recommends that 80.6 percent of the planning region be given a high degree of protection as special management areas, emphasizing a range of priorities: Heritage Management (2.1 percent), Fish and Wildlife Management (19.6 percent), Watershed Management (27.7 percent), and General Environmental Protection (31.2 percent).

The commission recommended that areas proposed as "Special Management Areas" should be immediately withdrawn from staking, however continued aerial access to, and development of existing mineral claims will be allowed subject to specific management conditions. New surface access development is prohibited within Special Management Areas.

Mineral and Oil and Gas opportunities can be pursued in "Integrated Management Areas" (19.4 percent), subject to key land-use and environmental management considerations, including enhanced community consultation where specified, the panel said.

The plan now goes to the Yukon government and four area First Nations, the Na-Cho Nyak Dun, the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in, Gwich'in Tribal Council, and the Vuntut Gwitchin, and the Yukon Government for approval.

Industry opposes plan

Earlier this year, a draft of the plan drew strong opposition from Yukon's mining industry because the commission called for a prohibition on mining activity in the vast wilderness area.

The commission's final recommendations drew mixed reactions.

The Yukon Conservation Society says the recommended land-use plan strikes the right balance between conservation and development.

Members of the mining industry disagreed.

Carl Schulze, president of the Yukon Chamber of Mines, said he was extremely disappointed in the plan because it will render mineral claims in the area worthless.

The commission's recommendation to let existing mineral claims, which cover about 3 percent of the watershed, stand is meaningless to the industry, according to Schulze.

"The area has seen a lot of mining exploration in the last 50 years and several deposits have been identified, including the world-class Crest iron formation, Shulze said. "These claims are effectively valueless if there's not a reasonable prospect of working them and accessing them if there's a deposit on them."

According to Yukon government records, there are 245 Minfile occurrences in the Peel watershed, 12 of which are deposits - 7 coal deposits, 3 iron deposits (including Crest iron), 1 zinc deposit (Goz Creek), and 1 copper-zinc deposit (Hart River). Also, mineral explorers have conducted diamond drilling programs on 45 occurrences in the watershed.

All of the deposits identified in Minfile are historical deposits, and none have current NI 43-101- compliant resources.

"It's really striking that the area has been declared 'pristine wilderness,' but it has more than 200 Minfile occurrences and some oil and gas exploration," Schulze said.

Moreover, the commission cited results of a poll that showed that 70 percent of the respondents favored more than 50 percent protection. But the poll was commissioned by two environmental groups and the Yukon Tourism Association, which hurt its credibility, Schulze said.

"To use that as a basis for determining permanent land use is not sound politics or good science," he said.

Roadless mine development?

Under the commission's recommendations, new road construction is prohibited in the Peel watershed, and without roads, miners can't explore or develop their claims effectively, Schulze said.

Instead, the commission suggested that miners use "airships" to conduct exploration and development activity, he said.

Though industrial activity theoretically would be allowed in the Integrated Management Areas, it would be strictly monitored and not especially practical without roads.

"The commission has basically declared this highly prospective area off-limits. You can't do any work at all, with the exception of a narrow strip along the Dempster Highway, or about 2.2 percent of the entire watershed," Schulze said.

Schulze said a major concern about the commission's plan for the Peel watershed is the precedent it would set, one that could start a trend for planning the territory's other land-use areas. The Peel is only the second of eight areas in which planning has been addressed so far. In the North Yukon area, the land use plan, the territory's first, restricted mining activity in 50 percent of the area.

Compensation for appropriation

Another concern is the possibility that the plan is "defacto appropriation," and under Canada law, property cannot be appropriated without compensation.

If the plan is approved, the restrictions on the mineral claims with the Peel watershed area could end up costing the government a considerable sum.

For example, the provincial government had to pay developers of the Windy Craggy Project in northern British Columbia C$103 million in compensation when that area was converted into a park in 1993.

A Chevron subsidiary owns the Crest iron deposit and if it becomes necessary to compensate the company for its lost value, the government could be required to pay Chevron more than C$1 billion.

Mine prospector Shawn Ryan said he hopes the government does not accept the new Peel land use plan.

"People want to protect that ground, but their desires are based on emotion," Ryan said. "They just want to kick mining out, but everyone else can stay. That's not going to work. We're hoping the government will come up with a more level-headed plan."

The final plan actually turned out to be more pro-protection than any of the draft plans, Schulze observed. One draft even considered an access road for the Crest deposit, but that proposal was dropped in the final recommendations, he added.

David Loeks, a spokesman for the Peel commission, said the panel could have used more information from the territorial government.

"Our process has been guided by the analysis of the lands and the resources and the issues and interest as they've been revealed to us by our own planning process, but not things that have been operating in the media and the public, in general," he said.

It is now up to the Yukon government and the First Nations to decide whether the plan should be adopted or changed. A decision is expected in 2010.

Yukon government officials declined to comment on the commission's recommendations.

The commission said it would publish a plan summary document Dec. 18. The full plan can be viewed on the panel's Web site, http://www.peel.planyukon.ca/downloads/rlup.html.