After 14 years heading the local chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), Juri Peepre is stepping back.

'It has been a really interesting time,' Peepre said in an interview this morning.

Three days ago, he handed over the position as executive director to forest ecologist Jim Pojar.

'I am not leaving CPAWS or moving out of the territory, or anything like that,' said Peepre.

'But it is time for me to look for new challenges and it's also time for a new person to take a crack at conservation here.'

Peepre said he'll remain on for a transition period. He'll eventually move out of the CPAWS office into his own home office, but will continue to do contract and volunteer work for the organization.

No stranger to heated debates, Peepre has been the voice for CPAWS on issues from the Yukon government's wolf-kill programs of years gone by to the equally controversial Yukon Protected Areas Strategy. The current government shelved that strategy indefinitely in early 2003.

Peepre has gone toe to toe with territorial governments of all stripes in the exercise to establish the Fishing Branch protected area and the Tombstone territorial park.

CPAWS has been a watchdog in the development of federal and territorial policy affecting land use and forest management, as well as the burgeoning initiative to attract oil and gas development to the territory.

It has garnered the support of many who see the territory as a final frontier of vast, unspoiled wilderness.

It has raised the ire of many others who see CPAWS and its leader of so many years as an affront to industrial development and a sustained economy for the territory.

Peepre said when you work for a non-government organization, you are really an agent for change. When you push for change, he continued, inevitably, you have people pushing back.

But the Yukon resident of 17 years said the organization is always up for a debate.

'Certainly, when it gets personal, and goes into the gutter, that's not much fun.'

The Yukon Party government may have iced the Yukon Protected Areas Strategy, but that 'hasn't slowed CPAWS one iota' from carrying on with its protected areas agenda on other fronts, like regional land use planning exercises, he said.

The success of Fishing Branch and Tombstone come to mind when Peepre recalled triumphs over the years.

So too, however, is the organization's part in raising the consciousness of Yukoners about the importance of ensuring conservation and environmental protection are not sacrificed for economic development, he said.

Peepre said the Yukon, and the North in general, will continue to be centre stage in the conservation community, at home and abroad.

In the lean beginnings in 1990, Peepre began the local chapter of CPAWS and worked for two years as a volunteer. He then moved into a part-time position and then full-time.

The organization now has five full-time positions.

Over the years, Peepre explained, funding foundations in Canada and the United States have developed a growing interest in the North and in its relative pristineness, similar to their keen interest in West Coast issues. It is not difficult to sell the Yukon, he said.

'The Boreal forest and the North is now emerging as an area of high priority in general in the conservation world.'

The new executive director, with a doctorate in forest ecology, comes to the Yukon from Smithers, B.C., with extensive experience working in northern B.C. and the Boreal forest, he said.

'And he has terrific credentials in conservation,' said Peepre. 'So we are looking forward to that.'