Approval statistics for the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board

Taylor Belansky, a student researcher at YukonU, is leading a research project on how socio-economic and environmental impacts are considered in Yukon’s assessment process. Yukoners rely on the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board (YESAB) to make environmentally sound decisions when approving or rejecting project proposals. As all new or emerging projects need to be assessed by YESAB when requiring a permit, it is important to understand what and how certain environmental impacts are considered and approved.

Taylor’s primary work involves analyzing and comparing the historical data describing YESAB’s project recommendations and outcomes and creating a literature review describing how the environmental assessment process is done in other jurisdictions. This summary will summarize YESAB project recommendations and highlight where there may be discrepancies and produce approval statistics for YESAB.

These research results will be available online later this summer. Analyzing such large quantities of data would not have been possible without the supervision of Dr. Katie Aitken, and the Scholarly Activity Grant that funds Taylor’s salary.

Photo caption: Taylor Belansky also works in the YukonU Research Centre laboratory for the Northern Mine Remediation program.