One year after lawyers for the territorial government, conservation groups, and Yukon First Nations squared off in a four-day trial over the fate of the Peel River watershed, they’ve returned to court today for the appeal.

The day began with arguments from the appellant Yukon government’s lawyer, John Laskin, before the three-judge Yukon Court of Appeal panel.

Four lawyers are present to represent the government throughout the two-day hearing.

Three, including renowned aboriginal rights lawyer Thomas Berger, are in court for the respondents: the Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation, the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun, the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, the Yukon Conservation Society and the Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

Jeff Langlois is representing the Gwich’in Tribal Council, which is an intervener in the case.

This morning, the main courtroom was packed with government employees, First Nations representatives, involved parties, elders and reporters.

The hearing is being live-streamed to a second courtroom, which was also full this morning.

At the heart of the legal battle is the Peel River watershed, an expanse of undeveloped northern Yukon wilderness, home to rivers, valleys, mountains and wildlife.

Land use planning for the region, roughly the size of New Brunswick, has been a source of discussion and, later, contention between the territorial government and the First Nations whose traditional territories falls within the Peel.

Last December, Yukon Supreme Court Justice Ron Veale ruled in favour of the First Nations and environmental grounds, quashing a plan the Yukon government had imposed for the region in January 2014.

That plan protected 29 per cent of the Peel from development.

Veale determined that the Yukon government had overstepped its boundaries by imposing a “significantly different” plan than the one recommended by the Peel Watershed Planning Commission, a body formed as required under the territory’s Umbrella Final Agreement.

Veale criticized the government’s conduct throughout the planning process, which first began in 2004, and quashed the plan implemented by the government.

The land use planning process saw the commission present first a recommended plan for development in the Peel, then, after consultation with the affected First Nations, the government proposed modifications.

The commission then released a final recommended plan.

That set out a ban on development in 80 per cent of the pristine wilderness, leaving 20 per cent open for mineral exploration.

In January 2014 though, the government released its own plan. It designated 29 per cent a “protected area,” with development and exploration permissible on the rest.  

The Tr’ondek Hwech’in, Na-Cho Nyak Dun, CPAWS Yukon and the Yukon Conservation Society filed their lawsuit that month, arguing the government had acted outside the process outlined in the UFA.

The government responded that it had the authority to make the final say over non-settlement land.

The trial spanned four days last July.

On Dec. 2, 2014, Veale handed down his decision.

The territorial government “effectively usurped the planning process,” he wrote, and its interpretation of the UFA was “impermissibly flawed.”

It “neither respected the land use planning process nor interpreted the land use planning process in the honourable way expected of the Crown under First Nations Final Agreements.”

Veale quashed the government’s plan and ordered the planning process return to the point at which it went off the rails. 

The government would not be allowed to revisit the amount of land designated for wilderness protection in the commission’s final recommendation, or the tight restrictions for road and rail access into the watershed, the decision stated.

The Yukon government appealed on Dec. 30, seeking that three specific findings or orders by the judge be quashed: that the government did not follow the proper process in consulting on a final land use plan, that it had introduced new changes that weren’t presented to the commission, and that it must accept 80 per cent wilderness protection and limited surface access throughout the region.

It amended its appeal in April, requesting that the Court of Appeal throw out Veale’s decision in its entirety.

In May, the Vuntut Gwitchin applied successfully to be added as a respondent in the case.

Local events are planned today to kick off the appeal.

Under steady rain, a Water Ceremony for the Peel was held from noon to 1 p.m. on the front steps of the Law Courts building (see coverage in Friday’s Star.)

There is also a barbecue set for 5 to 8 p.m. at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre.