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Yukon First Nations promise financial support for Peel legal fight

As parties prepare for an appeal hearing on the Peel land use plan, chiefs at a leadership meeting of the Council of Yukon First Nations pledged their support for a Peel watershed land use legal defence fund.

'This is an attack on our final agreements,' chief says of territorial government's appeal

CBC News ·
Marten Berkman on a ridge overlooking the canyons, gendarmes, and stunning castellated ridges near Mount Netro in Yukon's Peel watershed. (Juri Peepre)

Chiefs at a leadership meeting of the Council of Yukon First Nations pledged support for a Peel watershed land use legal defence fund Wednesday, as parties prepare to head back to court.

Na-Cho Nyak Dun Chief Ed Champion says First Nations leaders in Yukon recognize the territorial government's position on the Peel land use plan is an attack on their final agreements. (CBC)
In December, a historic Yukon Supreme Court ruling on the watershed found that the Yukon government's modifications to the Peel land use plan did not respect the planning process set out in the territory’s final agreements with First Nations. The territorial government is appealing that decision. 

Ed Champion, chief of the Na-Cho Nyak Dun First Nation, says of the defence fund that "all the First Nations have come together in unification to take on this important matter. They're recognizing that this is an attack on our final agreements, and we are coming together collectively to work together to solve that.

"It's also now all the First Nations, so it's really quite major. It's a strong statement," he says.

Premier Darrell Pasloski has said the final decision on the use of Crown land should rest with the Yukon government.

It's not known when the Yukon Court of Appeal will review the Peel case.

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