While the federal government and various provinces develop plans to shortcut environmental safeguards in favour of expediting development, there’s a very different approach unfolding in the Yukon.

At the end of March, the Dawson Regional Planning Commission presented its Final Recommended Plan to the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin Nation and the Yukon government. The 500-page plan sets out a carefully considered framework that incorporates both worldviews and considers multiple and varied interests in a massive 39,854 km2 area covering roughly 10 per cent of the territory.

It has taken the Planning Commission — which consists of three Government of Yukon nominees and three Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin nominees — seven years and two revisions to come up with a plan that recommends protecting nearly 48 per cent of the region, reflecting the immense ecological importance of one of the world’s most intact natural areas. Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin were not merely “consulted” on this plan, they have been at the table helping to make consensus decisions every step of the way.

The protected areas network has been carefully designed to maintain connectivity from the Peel watershed and picturesque Tombstone Territorial Park right through to the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Reserve in Alaska, while avoiding the fragmentation........

© National Observer