The territorial government’s appeal of a Yukon Supreme Court decision regarding the land use plan for the Peel River watershed will be heard Aug. 20-21.

It will be held during a special sitting of the Yukon Court of Appeal.

Government lawyer John B. Laskin of Torys LLP and Thomas Berger, counsel for the respondents – the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun, the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation, the Yukon Conservation Society and the Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society – appeared in court via phone on Friday for a brief readiness hearing.

Jeff Langlois, a Vancouver-based lawyer who represented the Gwich’in Tribal Council as an intervener during last summer’s trial, also phoned in. Chief Justice Robert J. Bauman appeared by video.

In the coming month, the two parties will file their factums – the arguments each will use during the appeal.

In his Dec. 2, 2014 decision, Justice Ron Veale found that the territorial government had violated the land use planning process laid out in the Umbrella Final Agreement during talks over the future of the Peel.

His ruling mandated that the vast region must be subject to maximum wilderness protection – 80 per cent, as recommended by the Peel land use planning commission in 2011.

With the decision, the process would return to the final round of consultation with First Nations and the public.

The government will be restricted to the modifications it proposed at an early stage of the dialogue, but the issues of access and the amount of land protected are off-limits, Veale wrote in his decision.

The Yukon government filed its appeal last Dec. 30.

It’s asking the Court of Appeal to quash three orders issued by Veale, including one to accept the maximum protection and limited surface access throughout the region.

It’s also asking the higher court to strike down the judge’s finding that the government did not follow the proper process in consulting on a final land use plan, and that it introduced new provisions at the last minute.