The Yukon Chamber of Mines stated its frustration Thursday with the Peel River watershed case lingering in the courts in the wake of the government’s appeal of a Yukon Supreme Court decision on the region’s future.

In a short statement, the chamber said it encourages a “fair and balanced” planning process to secure a compromise between protection and access to exploitable land.

The chamber said it was “disappointed that the Peel watershed land use plan has been a process that continues to be mired in the courts.”

Like the Yukon Chamber of Commerce, the chamber of mines “respects” the decision to appeal “in an effort to not only bring certainty to the land use planning process but certainty to both First Nations and Yukon government’s rights and obligations to plan the use of Yukon’s public lands,” the release states.

The chamber also registered its concern over “increased restrictions on land use and access to minerals” that it suggested could deter investors and wound the economy.

Executive director Samson Hartland has not been available to comment this week on the release’s assertion that “a fair and balanced land use planning process would not find itself in the court system.”

Norman Snowshoe, vice-president of the Gwich’in Tribal Council, told the Star this morning the chamber’s general message overlapped with their own.

“If you work together and come up with a mutually acceptable plan, litigation would not be required,” he said.

“Based on our relationship with the government, we thought we had that. We believed we had that.

“Our presumption is that it was a fair and balanced process, and unfortunately, the other party feels different.”

The Gwich’in Tribal Council — an intervenor in the case, but not a plaintiff — is one of four First Nations affected by the Peel ruling.

First Nations settlement land comprises about three per cent of the Peel River watershed.

On Dec. 30, the government filed its appeal of the court’s decision that 80 per cent of the Peel should effectively remain protected from resource development — as laid out in the independent commission’s final recommended plan.

The decision on Dec. 2 came after seven years of consultations, a lawsuit filed against the territory by two First Nations and a pair of environmental groups last January, and a four-day trial last July.

In launching its appeal, the government invoked democratic authority and resource opportunities.

All four plaintiffs in the case — the Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation, First Nation of Na-cho Nyak Dun, Yukon Conservation Society and Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Yukon — and both opposition parties have attacked the government’s choice to appeal.

The court decision states the territorial government must accept maximum wilderness protection for the remote region, which comprises 68,000 sq. kilometres of untramelled mountains, valleys and plateaus.

Justice Ron Veale concluded the government was wrong to apply a narrow interpretation of a clause in the land claim agreements that allows it to approve, reject or modify land use plans produced by regional planning commissions.

The government applied “an ungenerous interpretation not consistent with the honour and integrity of the Crown,” Veale wrote.

If the ruling stands, the government would not be allowed to reconsider the amount of land designated for protection from mineral staking and resource development in the commission’s final recommendation, now set at about four-fifths of the New Brunswick-sized expanse.

Tight restrictions for industrial road and rail access into the watershed would also remain.

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