Colin O'Neil

‘Protect the Peel’: Wilderness and Contested Environments in Yukon’s Peel Watershed

My research explores how constructions and conceptions of "wilderness" play a role in the ongoing environmental conflict around land-use planning in Yukon Territory's Peel Watershed. The Peel is a region known both inside and outside the territory as one of the few remaining “intact” watersheds in the world. Government interests to open the region to mining and development, First Nations traditional land use practices, and conservation and adventure tourism groups’ desires for a preserved wilderness all compete in the ongoing conflict surrounding the future of the region. My research asks the question: how is wilderness invoked by various groups in their effort to protect the Peel Watershed from industrial development? Natural resource development projects have historically played a large role in shaping the environment and the economy of the Yukon Territory, but alternative ways of seeing and managing nature increasingly contest the model of economic growth through the exploration and extraction of natural resources. Using qualitative research methods to examine primary and secondary data as well as to conduct in-depth, semi-structured interviews, my research explores the many ways that the concept of wilderness informs land use planning, environmental conservation, First Nations connections to land and experiences of nature in the Yukon Territory.