Protect the Peel Watershed

Background

The Peel Land Use Planning Commission, established in 2004, is the body responsible for recommending a land use plan to First Nation and Yukon governments by fall 2009. Plenty of work remains between now and then.

The land use planning Commission is currently working on zoning the land in the Peel watershed. They have set some direction for their work with a statement of intent and guiding principles. They collected available data and recently produced a conservation priority assessment and resource assessment report. Now they are putting this material together into scenarios that will determine how they intend to balance the maintenance of wilderness character, wildlife, habitat, cultural resources and water with mining and oil and gas interests in the area. This is quite the task.

The Yukon government appears to be more interested in promoting mining and oil and gas development in the Peel Watershed than wilderness, wildlife or tourism. There has been a 500% increase in mining exploration claims in the watershed over the last 4 years. Mining interests include iron ore, coal and uranium.

The land use planning process is a democratic opportunity for you to help determine the future of this outstanding area. If the Peel planning Commission and Yukon government don't hear loud and clear that people want entire watersheds protected, then roads, mines and oil and gas development could fragment the landscape, changing its nature while impacting the species living there and First Nations who rely on the area.

For more information about the Peel Watershed campaign or background information visit:
www.cpawsyukon.org/peel-watershed

We are in Whitehorse. Contact us anytime. We like to hear from you, at:
info@cpawsyukon.org

For more information about the Peel Watershed land use planning process, visit:
www.peel.planyukon.ca

Have you been to the Peel Watershed?
You can add comments directly onto a map of the Peel Watershed at:
www.peel.planyukon.ca/planning/plangeo.html

Your letter doesn't have to be long. It just needs to be written in your own words and sent.

When writing your letter, consider:

• What do you love most about the Peel Watershed? Have you had your own personal experience there? Do you want to know places like it exist now and into the future?

Protection of the Peel River watershed can:

• Ensure the maintenance of a valuable wilderness landscape of international significance
• Maintain existing compatible human uses and natural features while contributing to the continuation of: wilderness, recreation, tourism, hunting, guide outfitting, trapping, subsistence use and First Nations use of the land
• Contribute to a stable, diversified, local and regional economy
• Provide refuge for plants and animals to adapt and migrate in a changing climate.

Facts:

• There are six major tributary watersheds to the Peel River. Protection should include at least four of these - the Wind, Snake, Bonnet Plume and Hart watersheds along with protection of the Peel River corridor itself.
• Predator and prey systems remain intact. It provides habitat for animals requiring large areas to survive such as: grizzly bears, wolves, and wolverine.
• It is home to healthy herds of woodland caribou, a dwindling species in several southern Canadian jurisdictions.
• It is a breeding ground for peregrine falcons, once on the verge of extinction.
• It is an important source of habitat for migratory waterfowl and songbirds.
• It has clean rivers you can drink directly from.
• It has world class paddling rivers and world class hiking.

Wilderness canoeists enjoy the Peel Watershed’s Wind River.
Send a letter to ensure this opportunity remains.
Photo by Theresa Gulliver, CPAWS-Yukon