Listen to Everett’s reaction to the Anglo American AGM:
Tags: alaska, anglo american, bristol bay, fishing, gold, london, mining, pebble mine, salmon, sockeye
Anglo's CEO promised not to build the Pebble mine against community opposition. Surveys show: communities are overwhelmingly opposed. Click here to tell Cynthia to honor her promise!
Media Tip Sheet
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Maps of Bristol Bay
Detailed maps showing the Pebble mine site in relation to Bristol Bay, its tributary rivers and Alaska.
Photo Gallery
Images of Bristol Bay commercial and subsistence fishers and salmon. Available for publication.
Fact Sheets
Detailed background information and data on commercial and sport fishing, subsistence use and jewelers in support of responsible mining.
Profiles of Leaders and Experts
Alaska Native leaders, English angler celebrities, scientists and more available for interviews.
The award-winning documentary, Red Gold, follows the world's largest run of sockeye salmon from Alaska's Bristol Bay to their natal spawning grounds. The film weaves in the extraordinary stories of the Alaska Native people and commercial fishermen whose lives and traditions the salmon sustain. The proposed Pebble mine, a massive gold-copper-molybdenum deposit, now threatens to devastate those pristine spawning grounds.
I completely agree with Everett and others that the Bristol Bay drainages must be protected.
The mining claims are on state land. The State of Alaska has two land management agencies: the Alaska Department of Naturual Resources, which manages most state lands, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, which manages state fish and game refuges. The statutory mission of the Department of Natural Resources includes developing the state’s mineral resources. The statutory mission of the Department of Fish and Game is to conserve the state’s fish and wildlife.
The Bristol Bay drainges produce more economic production, about $400 million per year, from fish and wildlife than any federal or state refuge in the United States. Therefore, the land should be transferred from management by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources to management by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, as a fish and game refuge, for purposes of protecting fish, wildllife, habitat, and commercial, subsistence and recreation uses of them. Other uses, such as mining, could be permitted ONLY IF COMPATIBLE with those refuge purposes.
We talk a lot about fish, because they are so important, but there is more. Even if the state and federal goverment could protect fish and wildlife from Pebble, the population increase necessary and incidental to building and operating the mime will make it very difficult to protect subsistence, recreational use, and commercial fishing for some species (such as Chinook slamon bound for the Nushagak River). The incrase in population and access incidental to Pebble will create huge disputes over who gets to harvest fish and wildlife. The same is true with respect to recreational use of world class trout in a remote uncrowded wilderness setting that sustain a wilderness based lodge industry. The same is true with respect to hunting for moose and caribou.
In my view, the only solution is a state fish and game refuge. All other proposals leave the land management with the Alaksa Department of Natural Resources. That amounts to putting the proverbial “fox in charge of the hen-house.”
Thanks for your work in London.
Jeff
Good job Everett! We are so thankful that there are people who are willing to speak up for the fisherman/women of Bristol Bay as well as for those of us who rely on subsistence foods for survival throughout the long winter months. This resource is truly irreplaceable. Keep up the good work!