Analysis by Maxine Joselow
with research by Vanessa Montalbano
December 22, 2022 at 7:33 a.m. EST
Exclusive: Alaska Native group finalizes protections for its land, dealing blow to Pebble Mine
An Alaska Native group on Thursday will announce that more than 44,000 acres of land near Bristol Bay, the site of the world’s largest wild salmon fishery, are off limits to future development, according to details shared exclusively with The Climate 202.
The move will make it harder for the developers of the proposed Pebble Mine to build a road across the land, posing another setback for the controversial gold and copper mine that the Environmental Protection Agency is already considering blocking.
The details: Pedro Bay Corp., an Alaska Native group that owns land near Bristol Bay, announced last year that nearly 90 percent of its shareholders voted to let the Conservation Fund, an environmental nonprofit organization, buy conservation easements on more than 44,000 acres.
The corporation will reveal on Thursday that a successful $20 million, 18-month fundraising effort enabled the Conservation Fund to purchase three conservation easements on the land. The new protections cover a portion of the proposed mining road, which would be used to transport ore.
The protections also cover the most productive spawning and rearing habitats for sockeye salmon within the Iliamna Lake watersheds.
Half of the funding was provided by the Wyss Foundation, Patagonia’s Holdfast Collective and Alaska Venture Fund. (The specific dollar amounts of the individual contributions were not disclosed.)
“Protecting this last great stronghold for salmon is critically important for the health of the marine resources, the land, and the people who live in the Bristol Bay region,” Larry Selzer, president and chief executive of the Conservation Fund, told The Climate 202.
“It’s important to recognize that mining is a valuable economic activity and provides benefits to society that can’t be derived in any other way,” Selzer added. “However, not all projects should be approved. And the Pebble Mine is the wrong mine in the wrong place: up high in the watershed above the greatest salmon stronghold in the world.”
The fate of Bristol Bay has been contested for more than a decade. While many of Alaska’s elected officials have supported mining there, an unusual coalition of environmentalists, Republicans, fishermen and Alaska Natives helped persuade the Trump administration to deny a key permit for the Pebble Mine in 2020.
Pebble Limited Partnership, the U.S. subsidiary of the Canadian company behind the Pebble Mine, has argued that the project would provide economic benefits for the region and the state.
Asked for comment, Pebble Limited Partnership spokesman Mike Heatwole said in an email: “We respect the rights of Alaska Native corporation shareholders to make decisions about what to do on their lands and hope the Biden Administration will do the same for other Alaska Native corporation shareholders who may have differing views about what they would like do on their lands, especially regarding the Pebble Project.”
EPA’s potential veto
The Pebble Mine faces another potential challenge from the Biden administration. Casey Sixkiller, the EPA’s Region 10 administrator, announced Dec. 1 that he sent a recommendation to the agency’s headquarters to protect the Bristol Bay watershed by vetoing the project.
“This action would help protect salmon fishery areas that support world-class commercial and recreational fisheries, and that have sustained Alaska Native communities for thousands of years,” Sixkiller said in a statement.
Radhika Fox, who leads the EPA’s Office of Water, has 60 days to consider the recommendation. She could issue the veto, modify it, or reject it entirely.
“Hopefully these easements send a message that the local people who live here do not want this [mine] and it encourages the EPA to follow through with what they’ve been trying to do for well over a decade,” said Tim Troll, executive director of the Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust.
Maria Michalos, an EPA spokeswoman, confirmed in an email that the agency expects to make a final decision by Jan. 30.
Patagonia’s role
The new protections were made possible, in part, by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard’s unconventional approach to capitalism.
In September, Chouinard announced that he was giving away the outdoor apparel maker, valued at about $3 billion, and declared that “Earth is now our only shareholder.”
Chouinard and his family transferred their ownership of Patagonia to a specially designed trust as well as the Holdfast Collective, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating climate change and environmental destruction.
As one of its first grants, the Holdfast Collective contributed to the fundraising effort that enabled the new protections near Bristol Bay.
Patagonia spokeswoman Corley Kenna noted that the company, which has a long history of environmental activism, has supported groups working to protect the region since 2006.
“Stopping any further development in Bristol Bay is exactly the kind of thing that we want to do because it gets at the roots of both the climate and ecological crises,” Kenna said.