Nunavut land use plan coming

Public input is being sought for how the land of Nunavut is to be used.

The Nunavut Planning Commission is about to release its draft of the first territory-wide land use plan for Nunavummiut to review and share their opinions on.

This spring the NPC will produce a map marking out several “priority areas” for the public to consider and comment on.

Such areas to be marked will include places of notable wildlife or cultural significance, potential energy sources, community watersheds and other important features of the land.

That map will go out via a territory-wide mail drop with an accompanying questionnaire in all four official languages.

The responses NPC gets will help develop the official draft of the land use plan, to be submitted to the commissioner of Nunavut in September.

Then there will be another round of community consultations over the winter of 2010/2011, with a final draft due in June 2012 for approval by the territorial and federal executive councils.

NPC policy analyst Jonathan Savoy explained when the plan is complete, industry will be able to look at it before beginning the regulatory process for starting a new project in Nunavut.

Until it’s done, “there’s no guidance to industry as to what areas it’s appropriate to have development and which areas it’s not,” Savoy said.

A publicly available land use plan would “add another level of certainty” for those looking to develop Nunavut’s resources.

Parts of the land use plan will concern seasonal use, such as staying out of certain areas during annual wildlife migrations.

The presence of a land use plan will establish a new first step in the regulatory process in most Nunavut. Companies will have to contact the NPC to see if their initial ideas agree with the plan, the “conformity determination process.”

NPC already does that for North Baffin and the Kivalliq regions, which are covered under old land use plans largely inherited from the pre-Division NWT.

Savoy explained those documents are “obsolete.”

The territory-wide plan will effectively be a completely new plan for those regions, along with the Kitikmeot and South Baffin which have never been covered by land use plans before.

If a new proposed project falls within the plan, then it will continue on the usual path to approval through the Nunavut Impact Review Board, the water board and other regulatory agencies.

Projects that have already started the regulatory process won’t be affected by the new plan and will be grandfathered into legitimacy even if they conflict with the plan once it’s complete.

The land use plan will cover all of he Nunavut Settlement Area except for municipal lands and national and territorial parks.

Once complete, the plan will be reviewed every five years to accommodate input from the public, the private sector or government departments.

Amendments can be proposed at any time.

“The wildlife data we are relying on right now is changing. It’s always being updated,” Savoy said by way of example.