The Dawson Regional Planning Commission has just wrapped up the public consultation on their Plan Alternatives. After several months of working with the Yukon,Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in and Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation Governments and stakeholders, the Commission produced five plan alternatives that sketch out different possible directions the Draft Plan may take. After the review period ended on March 2, 2014, the Commission will now consider all the feedback and start to develop a Draft Plan that will likely be based on one or more alternatives. The staff of the Yukon Land Use Planning Council contributed analytical and administrative support to this project.

The academic journal the Northern Review recently published a case study of part of the Peel Watershed Planning Process - specifically that led by the Yukon Government upon receipt of the   pdf Final Recommended Plan (13.26 MB) . This analysis provides a number of lessons for future regional planning processes.

Links to this article are provided here to foster discussion of regional planning processes, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Yukon Land Use Planning Council.

The Yukon Land Use Planning Council recently sent a    pdf letter (291 KB)  urging the the Premier and the Yukon Government to develop a policy on how Yukon First Nations without Final Agreements can participate in regional land use planning in the Yukon. This is important because three of the remaining four planning regions include the traditional territories of First Nations without land claim settlements (Kluane, Teslin and Northern Tutchone regions). Such a policy will facilitate regional land use planning in the Yukon.

On January 30-31^st, the Council hosted a workshop on regional land use planning in the Yukon. The purpose of this workshop was three-fold:

1. To provide an overview of the process of creating regional land use plans in the Yukon under Chapter 11 Land Use Planning. An emphasis will be placed upon the stages in the process where the core planning work is done;
2. To answer questions from the many new people that are now involved in regional land use planning in the Yukon;
3. To consider the merits of Structured Decision Making during the production of a Recommended Land Use Plan.

We reviewed the numerous flip charts, recordings and notes from the workshop, and made a summary.

Most of the workshop package is also available electronically, including a report on   pdf Structured Decision Making in the Yukon (1.37 MB) , published in April 2013:

On April 10th, the Yukon Land Use Planning Council provided its review and comments on the approval process for the Peel Watershed Regional Land Use Plan to the Yukon Government and First Nations around the watershed. The Council routinely provides reviews and comments on regional planning products and processes throughout regional planning processes. The letter can be downloaded and read   pdf here (676 KB) .

On November 17th, 2011, the Council hosted a forum on the Atlin Taku Land Use Plan. The purpose of this forum was to understand the process by which the Province of British Columbia and the Taku River Tlingit First Nation developed the Atlin Taku Land Use Plan and to identify the relevant “lessons learned” that may be beneficial to land use planning in the Yukon.

Presentations and other documents from this forum are found here.

The land use plan itself, the Land and Resource Management and Shared Decision Making Agreement and related documents are found on BC's website here.

The    pdf Final Recommended North Yukon Use Plan (14.36 MB) was the last planning document by the North Yukon Planning Commission. Once the Parties (Vuntut Gwitchin and Yukon Governments) made slight modifications and approved it, this plan became the North Yukon Regional Land Use Plan, or the Approved Plan. Therefore, the Parties distribute this version on their site.

As a courtesy to the Parties, the Council assists with updates of this plan, as needed. These updates will be posted in our documents section   folder here .

The first such revision was to update Map #1 which depicts the land use categories. In particular, the areas withdrawn from staking where updated to reflect changes since the Plan was published.

About 80 people braved the chilly weather to attend a regional planning conference in Dawson City on January 18th and 19th, 2012. This well received conference used a combination of presentations, break-out work groups, and a panel discussion to address the evaluation of trade-offs, frameworks for conservation assessment and economic and social consequences of resource development.

The presentations and a summary of the proceedings are posted    pdf here (424 KB)  (and soon on the Dawson Regional Planning Commission's website).

The Peel Watershed Planning Commission, with the support of the Yukon Land Use Planning Council, released a brochure that describes the highlights of the Final Recommended Peel Watershed Land Use Plan. This brochure is good introduction to the plan, but is not a complete summary. Download it   pdf here (1.31 MB) pdf . (1.31 MB)

Congratulations to the Dawson Regional Planning Commission for reaching its first major milestone! On December 1st, 2011, it published its pdf Interests and Issues Report (263 KB) pdf . (263 KB)  This report summarizes the feedback from Plan Partners (the Yukon and Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in governments), stakeholder organizations and the general public on the Dawson Region land and resource base, and people's relationship to it. The Commission noted that some interests were shared among stakeholders, while others conflicted. Further, the Commission identified four key themes that will be addressed in their regional land use plan: