https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-22-2026
"On February 6, four direct descendants of President Theodore Roosevelt wrote
to United States senators to ask them to vote against a measure that opens up
the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in Minnesota to the Chilean
mining giant Antofagasta Plc and its subsidiary Twin Metals Minnesota.
Antofagasta wants to build a copper-nickel mine just outside the BWCAW on
national forest land.
The BWCAW is made up of more than a million acres, or over 4,000 square
kilometers, of pristine forests, glacial lakes, marshes, and streams in the
Superior National Forest in the northeast of Minnesota. It runs along 150 miles
(about 240 kilometers) of the border with Canada, linking with the slightly
larger Quetico Provincial Park on the other side of the border. The BWCAW is
the most visited wilderness in the U.S., with about 250,000 visitors annually.
The Interior Department estimates that it contributes more than $17 million
annually to the economy in northeastern Minnesota by supporting industries in
the outdoor recreation business.
In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt dedicated the lands that include the
BWCAW as the Superior National Forest. Since then, presidents of both parties
have protected the region, and in 1964 the BWCAW became part of the National
Wilderness Preservation System. In 1978, after logging threatened to destroy
the area, Congress passed the
BWCAW Act, ending logging and snowmobiling in
the wilderness area and restricting mining.
But in the early 2000s, mining companies proposed new copper mines in the
national forest near the wilderness, and according to Luke Goldstein of
The
Lever, the owner of Antofagasta, Chilean billionaire Andrónico Luksic, began
to try to get leases from the U.S. government for exclusive mining rights to
the lands near the BWCAW in 2012. In 2013, conservationists began a campaign to
ban mining there, and in 2016 the Obama administration blocked Luksic’s plans.
Shortly after Trump was elected in 2016, Luksic bought a mansion in Washington,
D.C., that he then rented to Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared
Kushner."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
