New rules on Yukon placer mining planned

by The Associated Press

A new system of regulating placer mining in the Yukon will be developed by the federal Fisheries Department, the Council of Yukon First Nations and the Yukon government.

“A harmonized, nationally consistent and timely approach to the regulation of placer mining is very important,” Robert Thibault, minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said in a statement.

Community leaders and miners in the Dawson area had painted a bleak picture of the economy of that area if new regulations designed to protect fish were put in place.

“It's a good start,” Tara Christie, president of the Klondike Placer Miners Association, said from Dawson City May 28. “But we still have a long way to go.”

In December, Thibault, the fisheries minister, said he was scrapping the Yukon Placer Authorization, the existing regulatory regime, and replacing it with guidelines that miners said would shut down half of the industry in the Yukon. The guidelines were to be phased in over four years.

The new system for regulating the miners is to be developed by next April, while the regime itself will be implemented by 2007, according to a joint news release by the three parties.

The new regime must establish a process that is fair and understandable to the industry, said Archie Lang, Energy, Mines and Resources minister for the Yukon.

To help achieve this, the Klondike Placer Miners' Association will be an active participant in discussions, Lang said.

“The active involvement by First Nations in this work should lead to guidelines that are achievable and incorporate local experience and traditional knowledge,” said Grand Chief Ed Schultz of the Council of Yukon First Nations.