NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
The Gwich'in Tribal Council is still deciding whether to join a lawsuit against the Government of Yukon's decision about the Peel watershed, says the council's vice-president.

Aklavik elder Wally McPherson protests the Government of Yukon's decision to leave 71 per cent of the Peel watershed open to development. Communities in both the NWT and Yukon held rallies last week to protest the Yukon's plan. A lawsuit has been filed against the Yukon government. - photo courtesy of Jeremy Moscher

Norman Snowshoe said a decision is expected this week.

On Jan. 27, the First Nation of Nacho Nyak Dun, Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in, the Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and the Yukon Conservation Society filed a lawsuit against the Government of Yukon.

Lawyer Thomas Berger is representing the group.

Also last week, First Nations and residents of both the Northwest Territories and Yukon protested the Yukon government's modified land use plan for the Peel Watershed.

Kyla Ross, a protest organizer in Fort McPherson, said the Yukon government's plan failed First Nations.

"We as Gwich'in people survive off of the Peel watershed, we are dependent on the Peel watershed," she said. "Without the Peel watershed, we will not exist as Gwich'in people. That's why we support the final recommended plan."

Ross and other protesters called on the government to adopt the land use plan recommended by the Peel Watershed Planning Commission in 2011, which was created through consultation with the Yukon government, aboriginal groups and communities.

The plan provided permanent protection for 80 per cent of the region. Fifty-five per cent would be protected forever, while the remaining 25 per cent would be reviewed over the years.

Protesters said the Government of Yukon radically altered the plan before releasing it on Jan. 21.

The government's modified plan provides permanent protection to 29 per cent of the region. The remaining 71 per cent will be open to development.

Ross, who organized the protest along with Anita Koe and the Tetlit Gwich'in Youth Council, said the lack of protection threatens the Gwich'in way of life.

"I depend on the Peel watershed for my food and everything else. We have hunters and trappers and fishers and this is what I've been taught by my elders," she said. "This is what I am now teaching. I'm not very old myself, but I am teaching it to the younger generation."

Bobbie Jo Greenland spearheaded another protest in Aklavik. She said people in her community were also upset about the decision.

"That really left me disappointed in the government altogether," she said. "I just find it very unethical and immoral that they totally disregarded the recommendations of the people who live here."

Greenland said her husband is from the Yukon and her mother is from Old Crow, and she considers herself a member of that community as well as Aklavik.

She said in addition to environmental concerns about the watershed, she feels the Yukon government's decision ignores the voices of those affected by it.

"For me, that's what upsets me a lot is the Yukon government is a handful of people," she said. "Many of them are not even pushing for what their constituents want."

Protests were also held in the Inuvik, and the Yukon communities of Whitehorse, Mayo, Dawson City and Haines Junction.

Gill Cracknell, executive director of the Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said there were between 400 and 500 people at the protest in Whitehorse.

Cracknell said CPAWS was outraged by the government's final plan.

"Well, quite frankly we're appalled by it," she said. "It's an affront to democracy."

The Peel watershed is at the intersection of an ice-free corridor found on the Eastern side of the Rocky Mountains during the last ice age and Beringia, the land bridge that connected Eastern Russia to North America, according to a report published by CPAWS.

Some species now live in the watershed and nowhere else on Earth, Cracknell said.

"It's a Beringian refuge," she said.

The watershed is also home to the Yukon's largest herds of woodland caribou, as well as populations of grizzly bears, wolves and other species.

Cracknell said protecting the Peel watershed means protecting an area seven times larger than Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park.

"We know that those national parks are not big enough to sustain large predators like the grizzlies and the migratory caribou and all those things," she said. "So this is something which is large enough to ensure the health of those populations."

Berger said the Yukon government did not follow the terms of the Umbrella Final Agreement in releasing its plan. The agreement requires the government to consult with First Nations and perform work collaboratively with land use planning commissions.

"The argument is simply this, the provinces have the right to determine land use planning because they have that authority under the constitution," he said. "In the Yukon, the Yukon government doesn't have that authority. It is bound to follow the procedure to develop land use planning through the use of the commission."

Berger said while the government maintains their plan is simply a modification of the commission's plan, it is drastically different.

"They claim that it constitutes nothing more than their earlier modifications, but in fact on any reading of it, it's a complete re-write," he said.

Berger said his clients hope the lawsuit will force the government to implement the commission's plan for the Peel watershed.

"They'll be asking the Supreme Court of the Yukon to rule that the commission's final plan, which took into account the proposed modifications advanced by the Yukon government, is binding on the Yukon government," he said.

The group filed its lawsuit on Jan. 27 and the Yukon government has 21 days to file its defense, Berger said.

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