By Patrick Quinn, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Windspeaker.com Facing devastating climate-fuelled impacts to their rivers and wildlife, Yukon First Nations are increasingly mobilizing to intensify monitoring research. The territory’s water chemistry has been changing over the last 20 years, with drastic shifts in the past few years that have been causing greater alarm. Growing evidence indicates that thawing permafrost is turning rivers and streams to a milky or bright orange colour with an acidic slime that appears to significantly alter the aquatic habitat. “Streams we were monitoring north of Dawson City totally turned on us as we were sampling them,” said Elliott Skierszkan, lead author of a recently published study on the phenomenon. “It’s been a rapid unwinding in the last two or three years that local people have also…
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