Less than a week before public consultation closes on the recommended Peel Watershed Land Use Plan, members of the Yukon Party government offered a window into a future under the proposed regime.

Conservation lobbies and the territory's Liberal party and NDP support the Peel commission's recommendation that 80 per cent of the 68,000-square-kilometre watershed be off-limits to development and the remaining 20 per cent be accessible by air only. (That does not include a small corridor bisected by the Dempster Highway.)

Not surprisingly, mining lobbies oppose the plan they insist would cut off access to most, if not all of 8,400 active claims in the watershed.

Between 2000 and 2008, resource exploration in the Peel region contributed more than $48 million to the economy, according to the Yukon Chamber of Mines.

While 6,800 claims have been staked in the watershed since 2004 – after the Peel commission began its deliberations – as the process nears its completion, and in light of the recommended land use plan, activity in the region has all but dried up.

But exploration in the remainder of the Yukon for 2010 continues apace. The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources is predicting $140 million will be spent by year's end, matching record exploration expenditures in 2007.

During Tuesday's budget debate in the legislative assembly, Economic Development Minister Jim Kenyon said economic activity makes investment in environmental protection possible, and that claim holders in the Peel would seek legal action if access to their claims were cut.

"What would (the opposition parties) do with all of these potential lawsuits out there?” asked Kenyon.

"There is a demonstrated need to react on that issue, but the demonstrated need isn't dictated by shooting yourself in the foot and continually reloading.”

Health and Social Services Minister Glenn Hart followed Kenyon. He suggested that if the government lost revenue from preventing exploration and mining in a "pristine environment”, then those who have access to that untouched landscape should pick up the tab.

"If you're going to have value for that pristine environment, the people who use that pristine environment will have to be taxed accordingly,” Hart told the legislature.

"In other words, the wilderness operators and the outfitters are all going to have to take some kind of responsibility in using that pristine wilderness.”

Karen Baltgailis, the Yukon Conservation Society's executive director, called Kenyon's threat of looming lawsuits were the proposed Peel land use plan accepted as is, "scare tactics.

"First of all, I would question how much validity claims for compensation would have for claims staked after the (Peel) process began,” Baltgailis told the Star.

"The point is this looks like nuisance staking ... and this is a case of buyer beware.

"And if the government had acted on the commission's and affected First Nations' recommendations and put a moratorium on active staking, we wouldn't be in this situation.”

Only in January 2010, nearly six years after the Peel Watershed Planning Commission, did the Yukon government enact a staking moratorium in the watershed.

As for Hart's suggestion that outfitters and wilderness tour operators should cover the spread for any lost revenue from mining, Baltgailis said those industries already pay their share of taxes.

But Carl Schulze, president of the Yukon Chamber of Mines, believes those Yukoners who oppose exploration and mining in the Peel are forming those opinions inside of a vacuum, and the planning process in general is taking an "ivory tower” approach.

"The Yukon is operating in a way that's completely divorced from any kind of reality, and (those opposed to mining activity in the Peel) have a feeling that mining and any resource extraction, well, they don't need it, ‘we'll still get our paycheck,'” Schulze told the Star.

"But if you work as a prospector, or mining contractor, you live in the real world.”

Schulze said Baltgailis is "dead wrong” when she calls mineral claims in the Peel registered after 2004 "nuisance staking,” as the chamber president claims many in the industry were unaware such a process was even underway.

"And if my ability to access land – the way I make money is doing mineral exploration – is taken away, I'm out of business,” said Schulze.

The relationship between industry, outfitters, tour operators and First Nations were on solid ground before the land use planning started, he added.

"People were getting along until this commission came up and told us we couldn't.”

The chance for commenting on the recommended Peel watershed plan closes tomorrow.