Yukon gov't fails Peel planning

An academic analysis of the way the Yukon government has handled the final stages of the Peel watershed land use planning process says it provides a fine example of what NOT to do.

Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan’s School of Environment and Sustainability zeroed in on the territory’s decision to reject the Peel commission’s final recommended plan and forge ahead with a new one unilaterally.

Bad move, say the authors of Fixing Land Use Planning in the Yukon Before It Really Breaks: A Case Study of the Peel Watershed.

Land use planning is, afterall, supposed to be a co-operative process.

“We predict that unless the identified flaws in the decision process are addressed, the Peel River watershed debate will only continue to be drawn out, with different participants, perspectives and values repeatedly coming into conflict,” says the Northern Review journal article by Kiri Staples, Manuel Chavez-Ortiz, Doug Clark and M.J. Barrett.

“There are certainly a lot of perspectives at play here, with some people wanting 100 per cent conservation and others wanting some development,” said Staples in a U of S news release.

“But it is ultimately up to the four First Nation governments and the Yukon government to come up with a way to navigate those differences through the decision process. Our analysis shows the Yukon government ultimately failed to do this.”

Conflicting perspectives and values among groups is to be expected in a diverse and democratic society, said Clark.

“However in the context of the Peel watershed the decision-making process led by the Yukon government left participants feeling they’ve been denied respect and a true voice at the table,” he said.

More should have been done much earlier to help stakeholders understand each other’s values and how those would be affected by different outcomes, the researchers concluded.

A clear set of ground rules from the get-go should also be a must when there are so many diverse and legitimate interests to be reconciled.

Click here to read the full article in the Northern Review.