Mining, Caribou, and Impact Assessment in Unceded Kaska Dena Territory, Yukon
Dr. Emilie Cameron, Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies & Fiona Doyle, MA, Institute of Political Economy, released a report today about how mining projects are being assessed and approved in unceded Kaska Dena territory, Yukon.
The study found that the Yukon Government approved every project for which it issued a decision document, even in cases where impacts to threatened caribou herds were predicted to be severe or “unmitigable.”
These two maps illustrate a key finding of the report.
The first map was produced by Yukon’s impact assessment board. It was used to argue that the proposed mineral exploration site, shown here in red, would have almost no impact on available caribou habitat, shown in brown cross-hatch.
The second map, produced by Fiona Doyle (co-author of the report), drawing on Yukon’s own data, shows the actual available habitat at the time, and the cumulative impact of multiple projects across the herd’s range.
The project was approved, along with every other project we studied. Full report at https://carleton.ca/geography/yukon-mining-report-may-2026/