Dawson land planning commission appeals to Yukoners for help on wetlands

Some wetlands in Dawson are equal parts rare and vulnerable. Much hangs in the balance in these complicated ecosystems, too, as they provide crucial habitat for moose, caribou and fish.

Now, the Dawson Regional Planning Commission is appealing to Yukoners for help honing plans to manage them.

"Overtly, this is hard, we need your guidance," said Nicole Percival, a land use planner with the commission, during a technical briefing Wednesday. "Wetlands are a really important and contentious issue in the region."

On June 15, the commission released a draft land use plan, which lays the groundwork for how roughly 10 per cent of Yukon's land mass — or roughly 40,000 square kilometres — should be managed in the future. 

Wetlands, a catch-all term for bogs, fens and swamps, among others, are included in the plan, which puts forward several recommendations that seek to balance stewardship of these spaces and industrial pursuits.

For instance, the plan puts forward checks and balances in the extensively mined Indian River watershed, south of Dawson City, the upper reaches of which should be tightly managed for its high conservation values, it states.

That's but one example.

Undisturbed bogs and marshes should be off-limits to development, the plan states. 

Percival said the commission is recommending these types of wetlands be spared from development because they are exceptionally rare in the region. 

According to the plan, bogs and marshes represent 0.4 per cent and 0.1 per cent of the planning region, respectively.

"I think the intent of that is really just to slow the pace in the scale of the development down, to give the land some time to breathe and to kind of look at the way that development is happening in those areas," Percival said.

"Fens and bogs are peatlands and they take a really long time to form and are arguably not replaceable," she said, adding there's no tried and true way to fully reclaim these types of wetlands.

Yukoners can weigh in

There are other unknowns, too. Pervical said it's unclear how permafrost affects the composition of these ecosystems.

There are some regions where industry should be allowed to move ahead, according to the plan, which calls these zones "integrated stewardship areas."

Here's another rub: Fens are located in some of these regions, and that's complicating the work of the commission.

"For fens, they're an area that's kind of in-between," said Tim Sellers, a senior land use planner with the commission. "They're more common on the landscape, but somewhat sensitive, so we're actually seeking specific input on, well, what do people see as an appropriate level of conservation for those areas?"

The draft plan states upward of 12 per cent of the Dawson planning area consists of wetlands.

Yukoners can weigh-in on the plan until Nov. 1. In addition to this, Sellers said workshops will be organized to address a range of issues, including those impacting wetlands.