A petition sent to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is urging the administration of President Joe Biden to put the brakes on a potential mining boom in favor of a sustainability approach that includes recycling.
The 18-page document includes nine Native American tribal organizations as petitioners plus another 30 signatories describing themselves as conservation groups. The latter category includes several more groups with tribal affiliations, plus Earthworks, the League of Conservation Voters, the National Resource Defense Council and the Sierra Club.
The petitioners state, “It’s long-past time to reform the nation’s hard rock mining rules, end generations of mining-inflicted injustice to Indigenous communities and chart a new course for public lands stewardship toward a sustainable, clean energy economy.”
The petition acknowledges the scramble for metals occurring tied to a national or global switch to alternative sources of energy and new types of batteries. As opposed to a rebirth in mining, the petitioners write, “Building a sustainable economy based on clean energy gives us an historic opportunity to confront the legacy of injustice to Indigenous communities and damage to the public lands held in trust for all Americans. Seizing that opportunity requires policies that prioritize metals recycling and reuse over new mining.”
Regarding their opposition to mining activities, the petition’s authors write, “This century’s mining rush must not repeat the tragic mistakes of the 19th century rush for precious metals and the 20th century rush for uranium. Those mining rushes killed and displaced untold numbers of Indigenous and other marginalized peoples, destroyed sacred and cultural resources, stole lands, scarred landscapes and polluted water and climate.”
The 18-page petition can be viewed on this web page.