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Lush green fields of alfalfa spread across thousands of acres in a desert valley in western Arizona, where a dairy company from Saudi Arabia grows the thirsty crop by pulling up groundwater from dozens of wells.


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Desertification threatens 24% of the world's land area spanning 126 countries and impacts 35% of the global population. Yet mainstream global efforts to tackle desertification prioritize short-term vegetation greening over addressing resource constraints and local livelihoods, creating hidden barriers to achieving the United Nations' long-term Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).


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When a 2018 fire burned across 73,000 hectares (180,000 acres) of the Santana Indigenous Territory, located in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna, the local Bakairi people waited helplessly for authorities who came far too late. That devastating experience was a turning point. The community mobilized to create a volunteer fire brigade, largely composed of Indigenous women, Mariana Rosetti and Paola Churchill reported for Mongabay in October. “It’s not just young girls,” Edna Rodrigues Bakairi, a local educator and member of the brigade, told Mongabay. “There are women aged 40, 45, 50 who can fight the fires. They come from all age groups, and they all act with courage.” Of the 45 trained volunteers, 25 are women ranging from teenagers to grandmothers. They were trained by Paulo Selva, a retired colonel from the Mato Grosso state fire department who recognized the urgent need to empower Indigenous communities to defend their territories from the growing threat of wildfire. “The fire department only addresses issues related to fires that occur within its areas of operation, but more than 45% of forest fires occur outside of that legal condition,” Selva said. To help fill that gap, Selva created the nonprofit Environmental Operations Group Institute.  With the organization, he travels to Indigenous communities across the region to offer trainings on firefighting and prevention, first aid and survival skills. During a visit to the Santana Indigenous village in 2021, Selva found that women were an obvious choice for the role. They tend to spend more time in the community,…This article was originally published on Mongabay


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In the last century, synthetic fertilizers have changed the face of the planet. The current world population might be halved if not for this useful development.


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Australia is baking through another extreme heat wave, with temperatures forecast to reach above 45°C for multiple days in a row across large swaths of the country.


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Millions of Britons could be ready to swap imported fish for home-caught favorites like sardines, sprats and anchovies, according to a new study from the University of East Anglia (UEA), titled "The Socio-economic evidence for sustainable fisheries."


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Dogs fed on premium, meat-rich pet food can have a bigger dietary carbon pawprint than their owners, according to the largest study into dog food's climate impact.


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Climate change is causing trees to sprout earlier in spring. Nevertheless, some tree species are growing less. A study by the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL shows that increasing heat and drought are slowing down the growth of the most common tree species in Switzerland. This has consequences for carbon storage and forestry.


From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

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Planthoppers and leafhoppers not only feed on rice plants but also act as highly efficient vectors for plant viruses, causing substantial yield losses worldwide. Notably, their persistent ability to evade natural enemies is not merely a matter of chance—it is subtly reinforced by the plant viruses they carry.


From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

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Across all domains of life, immune defenses foil invading viruses by making it impossible for the viruses to replicate. Most known CRISPR systems target invading pathogens' DNA and chop it up to disable and modify genes, heading off infections at the (cellular) pass.


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Using ribosome engineering (RE), researchers from Shinshu University introduced mutations affecting the protein synthesis mechanism of probiotic Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG). These mutant LGGs exhibit altered surface protein expression, including increased presentation of so-called "moonlighting proteins." These mutants adhere more strongly to intestinal cells and induce enhanced activation of immune cells, making them "super-probiotics."


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When a grizzly bear attacked a group of fourth- and fifth-graders in western Canada in late November 2025, it sparked more than a rescue effort for the 11 people injured—four with severe injuries. Local authorities began trying to find the specific bear that was involved in order to relocate or euthanize it, depending on the results of their assessment.


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Recent reports of wells drying up in New Hampshire reflect a pattern we're increasingly seeing across New England: extended dry periods and below-normal precipitation are stressing shallow groundwater systems that many homeowners depend on.


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On clear days in Hartbeespoort, South Africa, satellite images often reveal a reservoir with shades of deep blue interrupted by drifting patches of vivid green. These shifting features indicate algae blooms, which can affect water quality, ecosystems, and nearby human communities.


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Rob Gillies
Associated Press

TORONTO — Canada’s Indigenous governor general and its foreign minister will visit Greenland in early February, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday.

The visit comes as U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his call for the U.S. to take control of Greenland, the Inuit self-governing territory of the kingdom of Denmark. Trump has also previously talked about making Canada the 51st state.

Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand and Governor General Mary Simon, who is of Inuk descent, are expected to open a consulate in Nuuk, Greenland.

“The future of Greenland and Denmark are decided solely by the people of Denmark,” Carney said while meeting with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at Canada’s embassy in Paris.

Anand posted a video of Carney meeting with Frederiksen on social media and said she will be in Nuuk in the coming weeks to officially open Canada’s consulate and “mark a concrete step in strengthening our engagement in support of Denmark’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, including Greenland.”

The island of Greenland, 80 percent of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people.

Simon became Canada’s first Indigenous governor general in 2021 and previously served as Canada’s ambassador to Denmark. The governor general is the representative of Britain’s King Charles III, who is the head of state in Canada, which is a member of the Commonwealth of former colonies.

The leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom joined Denmark’s Frederiksen on Tuesday in defending Greenland’s sovereignty in the wake of Trump’s comments about Greenland, which is part of the NATO military alliance. The leaders issued a statement reaffirming the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island “belongs to its people.”

Frederiksen and Carney are in Paris for the “coalition of the willing” talks on Ukraine, but Carney made a point of meeting with Frederiksen and NATO’s secretary-general ahead of those meetings.

“You have been very clear in your statement when it comes to the respect for national sovereignty,” Frederiksen said to Carney. “We are both into securing the Arctic region and together with all our NATO allies we can secure the region, so hopefully everybody is willing to work together.”

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, said Monday that Greenland should be part of the United States in spite of a warning by Frederiksen that a U.S. takeover of Greenland would amount to the end of NATO.

Trump has argued the U.S. needs to control Greenland to ensure the security of the NATO territory in the face of rising threats from China and Russia in the Arctic. “It’s so strategic right now,” he told reporters Sunday.

Carney said he’s made Arctic security a priority.

“We are making progress within NATO but we have to do more,” Carney said at an earlier press conference in Paris.

Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said it’s important at this point for Canada to show solidarity with the people of Greenland.

“It is vital for Canada partly because we are a major Arctic country and that Greenland is our neighbor, and partly because we have a strong incentive to stand for international law and against Trump-style bullying and aggression,” Béland said.

But Béland said Carney wants to avoid upsetting Trump as the free trade agreement between the two major trading partners is renegotiated this year.

“It’s a tough balancing act for the prime minister,” Béland said.

The post Canada’s Indigenous governor general to visit Greenland as Trump renews talk of annexing it appeared first on ICT.


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The Namib desert of south-western Africa can be extremely hot—the surface temperature can be over 50°C. But a surprising number of around 200 beetle species live on its bare, inhospitable-looking sand dunes.


From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

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Germany's greenhouse gas emission cuts slowed sharply in 2025 as the North Sea experienced its warmest year on record, piling pressure Wednesday on the conservative-led government to boost climate protection efforts.


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For decades, flooding has remained one of the most destructive and deadly natural disasters in the United States, causing an average of $8 billion in damages and nearly 90 deaths each year.


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Australian researchers have uncovered how a particular strain of a diarrhea-causing parasite managed to infect more animal species, offering new insights into how parasitic infections emerge and spread to people.


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Let’s establish some baselines.

Texas is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than Saudi Arabia or the global maritime industry. Its oil, gas, and petrochemical operations discharge tens of millions of pounds of toxic pollutants into the air each year, comprising almost one-fifth of such releases in the United States. It is the nation’s top emitter of the carcinogens benzene, ethylene oxide, and 1,3-butadiene.

It accounts for 75 percent of the petrochemicals made in the U.S. It is an engine of the world’s plastics industry, whose products clog oceans and landfills and, upon breaking down, infuse human bodies with potentially dangerous microplastics.

A map of Texas petrochemical plants

Despite all of this, the state’s commitment to fossil fuel infrastructure is unwavering, driven by economics. Oil and gas extraction, transportation, and processing contributed $249 billion to the state’s gross domestic product and supported 661,000 jobs in 2021, according to the most recent reports from the Texas Economic Development & Tourism Office. An industrial construction spurt is well into its second decade**,** with little sign of slowing.

Since 2013, 57 petrochemical facilities have been built or expanded in the state, according to the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project’s Oil & Gas Watch, which tracks these activities.  Over half are in majority-minority neighborhoods, the group’s data show.

Over the next five years, 18 new plants and 23 expansions are planned or are already under  construction. Twelve of these projects collectively will be allowed to release the same amount of greenhouse gases as 41 natural gas-fired power plants, according to the companies’ filings with the state. Emissions estimates for the other projects were not available.

All 41 petrochemical projects will also be permitted to release 38.6 million pounds of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s highest-priority pollutants, including carcinogens and respiratory irritants, according to company filings. Places like Jefferson County, in far southeastern Texas, and Harris County, which includes Houston, could see their air quality deteriorate, putting the public at increased risk of cancer, respiratory illness, reproductive effects, and other life-altering conditions. Five projects are to be sited within a 5-mile radius of Channelview, an unincorporated part of Harris County plagued by extremely high levels of cancer-causing benzene and a surge in barge traffic — an underappreciated cause of air pollution — on the San Jacinto River.

Companies have announced dozens more projects, including seven near Channelview, but haven’t begun the process of obtaining permits from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCEQ, which will allow them to construct facilities that release pollutants into the air.

A chart of announced petrochemical plants in Texas

The odds are in their favor: In the past quarter-century, the TCEQ has denied less than 0.5 percent of new air permits and amendments, often required for plant expansions.

For six months, Public Health Watch has been reviewing TCEQ permits, analyzing air quality and census data and talking to scientific experts, advocates, elected officials, industry representatives, and residents of Harris and Jefferson counties to try to capture the scope and potential health consequences of the petrochemical buildout.

Here are 3 out of 13 scenes from that buildout. View the full interactive feature at publichealthwatch.org.

Andy Morris-Ruiz

Home of Spindletop booms again: Jefferson County

Jefferson County has a quarter-million residents and stretches from Beaumont in the northeast to McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf of Mexico. Its Spindletop field birthed Texas’ first full-scale oil boom in 1901; today, it is once again an axis of industry zeal.

Just off Twin City Highway, where Nederland meets Beaumont, cranes are assembling a plant that will produce anhydrous ammonia and other chemicals used to make fertilizer and alternative fuels. According to state permits issued to owner Woodside Energy, the facility is authorized to annually add almost 80,000 pounds of nitrogen oxides, which can cause acute and chronic respiratory distress, to Nederland’s air. Nitrogen oxides also contribute to ground-level ozone pollution, the primary component in smog. Uncontained, ammonia can sear the lungs and kill in sufficient concentrations.

Four people formally objected to the facility’s expansion last summer but were unable to stop it. Officials in Jefferson County embraced the plant, granting Woodside a 10-year property-tax exemption and a $209 million tax abatement from the Beaumont Independent School District.

A map of Beaumont complexes

About 2 miles to the southeast of Woodside, Energy Transfer wants to erect a large ethane cracker on the Neches River. The hulking plant will heat ethane, a component of natural gas, to extremely high temperatures, “cracking” the molecules to make ethylene, a building block for plastics. According to Energy Transfer’s permit application, the cracker would be allowed to release nearly 10 million of pounds of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, which contribute to ozone and can cause effects ranging from throat and eye irritation to cancer, along with nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide, another smog-forming chemical that interferes with the body’s oxygen supply.

The TCEQ told Public Health Watch in an email that the project “is protective of human health and the environment and no adverse effects are expected to occur.”

There were seven formal objectors to the ethane cracker, among them Reanna Panelo, a lifelong Nederland resident who was 23 when she wrote to the TCEQ two years ago. “It is not fair nor is it morally right to build such a monstrous and horrendous plant designed to kill the surrounding area, residents, and environment, for company gain,” wrote Panelo, who said generations of her family had been tormented by cancer. The TCEQ executive director is processing Energy Transfer’s permit application, despite comments submitted in October by the Environmental Integrity Project alleging the project could violate ambient air quality standards for particulate matter — fine particles that can exacerbate asthma, cause heart disease, and contribute to cognitive decline. The Nederland Independent School District authorized a $121 million tax break for Energy Transfer.

Nine miles south of Nederland, in Port Arthur, two ethane crackers are poised for expansion and three new petrochemical facilities are planned, according to Oil & Gas Watch.

Read Next

An illustration of the Oxbow refinery

How a Koch-owned chemical plant in Texas gamed the Clean Air Act

Naveena Sadasivam & Clayton Aldern

“It’s the worst possible situation you can imagine,” said John Beard, a Port Arthur native and founder of Port Arthur Community Action Network, an environmental advocacy group. “You’re living in a toxic atmosphere that with every breath is potentially killing you.”

Air quality in Jefferson County has improved over the years — mostly a product of stricter regulation — but is still far from pristine. The American Lung Association gave the county an “F” for ozone pollution in its 2025 State of the Air Report Card.

A pungent haze occasionally envelops the county, portions of which have some of the highest cancer risks from air toxics in the nation, according to the Environmental Defense Fund’s Petrochemical Air Pollution Map. Indorama Ventures in Port Neches is one of the main drivers of risk — it makes the potent carcinogen ethylene oxide and releases more of the gas into the air than any other facility in the U.S., federal data show. Peter DeCarlo, an atmospheric chemist and a professor at the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, and a team of fellow scientists recently drove an air monitoring van through neighborhoods bordering Indorama. They measured levels of ethylene oxide “greatly exceeding what is acceptable for long-term exposure,” DeCarlo told Public Health Watch.

The county’s level of particulate matter already exceeds national air quality standards. Jefferson County spent 18 years in violation of the standard for ground-level ozone, but improved after 2009. Now, the county’s ozone levels are creeping upward again. DeCarlo said that the new sources of pollution slated for the region could push the county over the limit again — subjecting it to tougher oversight — and worsen its fine-particle problem.

In a statement to Public Health Watch, Woodside said its ammonia plant is 97 percent complete and represents “a $2.35 billion investment in American energy, supporting approximately 2,000 construction jobs and hundreds of permanent ongoing jobs. … Once operational [it] is expected to increase U.S. ammonia production by more than 7 percent, strengthening domestic agriculture, food production, and manufacturing, while potentially doubling U.S. ammonia exports.”

The company said it met with four residents who filed comments with the TCEQ and appreciated “the strong community support for the project.”

Energy Transfer and Indorama Ventures did not respond to requests for comment.

An illustration of a bald Black man

Andy Morris-Ruiz

Historic Black neighborhood threatened with extinction: Beaumont, Jefferson County

The Charlton-Pollard neighborhood, on Beaumont’s south side, was established in 1869 by freed slave and school founder Charles Pole Charlton. In the mid-20th century it was a cultural hub — home to Beaumont’s “Black Main Street” and some of the oldest Black churches and schools in the city. It was part of the Chitlin’ Circuit, a group of performance venues during the Jim Crow era that hosted James Brown, Ray Charles, and other luminaries.

Segregation, disinvestment, and expanding industrial operations — railways, an international seaport, and a petrochemical complex — gradually eroded Charlton-Pollard’s rich culture and institutions. Stores, schools, and a hospital have closed, and now the buffer between the north end of the neighborhood and advancing industrial development is thinning.

The Port of Beaumont has acquired 78 parcels in Charlton-Pollard’s sparsely populated northeastern corner since 2016, property records show. This year it paved a lot the size of 18 football fields in their place, where it plans to store cargo, including building materials for new and expanding petrochemical plants. The lot lies across the street from the 97-year-old Starlight Missionary Baptist Church and two blocks from Charlton-Pollard Elementary School.

“The port recognizes the deep history of Charlton-Pollard and remains committed to operating responsibly and respectfully within that framework,” said Chris Fisher, the port’s director and CEO. He said he and his team have been transparent with the Charlton-Pollard Neighborhood Association, only developing in a specially zoned “transitional area” in the northeastern corner. In the 1990s and early 2000s, some residents asked the port to buy their properties, Fisher said. Later, after plans for the paved lot were solidified, the port began offering property owners 50 percent to 100 percent above appraised value and, in some cases, $15,000 relocation allowances, he said.

“We kind of made sure that everybody that we dealt with was better off than before we did anything,” Fisher said. The port condemned properties when owners couldn’t be located or had unpaid taxes, he said.

The neighborhood association’s president, Chris Jones, a 45-year-old former Beaumont mayoral candidate, said the port’s acquisitions are “the continuation of a long pattern: One where Black neighborhoods were first under-documented, then underinvested, and ultimately treated as expendable in the path of industry.”

When residents sold their properties, they “were navigating declining property values, loss of services, and the clear signal that the area was being prioritized for industrial use,” Jones said. “In that context, selling is often less about choice and more about survival.”

Petrochemical facilities near Beaumont

He worries that the removal of trees and the addition of pavement will intensify heat and worsen noise pollution for those left in the neighborhood. Rail traffic supporting local industry has already increased, he said, and his status as an Army veteran makes him “vexed at the sound of a horn.” Jones and some allies hope to win historical designations for several churches in Charlton-Pollard to stave off further industrial encroachment.

Environmental hazards are not new to Charlton-Pollard. A refinery now owned by Exxon Mobil was built less than a mile away in 1903. Almost a century later, residents filed a complaint with the EPA’s Office of Civil Rights, accusing the TCEQ of allowing the company to pollute above safe levels, increase emissions without public input, and exceed permitted limits without penalty. The case was settled in 2017 after the TCEQ agreed to install an air monitor near the site and hold two public meetings. Charlton-Pollard still lies within the 99th percentile nationwide for cancer risk from air pollution, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

In addition to the refinery, Exxon Mobil now operates a chemical plant, a polyethylene plant, and a lubricant plant within the complex; last year the company said it plans to build a chemical-recycling facility there as well. Six more petrochemical projects are planned by other companies within 5 miles of Charlton-Pollard.

In short, anyone who hasn’t been bought out by the port may breathe increasingly dirty air. Jefferson County is already violating the EPA’s standard for particulate matter, and diesel-burning trains and maritime vessels accommodating the industry expansion are large emitters of fine particles, as well as smog-forming nitrogen oxides.

Most infuriating, Jones said, is the idea that industrial development in Jefferson County is being underwritten in part by tax breaks even as Beaumont’s basic infrastructure — roads, sewage treatment — crumbles. Not long ago, he said, he saw “fecal waste” collecting in the Irving Avenue underpass. “The shit just rolled onto the street.” (Voters approved a $264 million bond package in November to improve streets and drainage.)

An illustration of a set of lungs pumping smoke

Andy Morris-Ruiz

Fine particles, ozone, and the body

In addition to spewing carcinogens like benzene and 1,3-butadiene, petrochemical plants release large amounts of “criteria pollutants” — the six common airborne substances the EPA regulates most closely. Regions across the country struggle to meet federal air quality standards for two of these in particular: ground-level ozone and particulate matter.

Dr. John Balmes, a professor emeritus at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, is a physician advisor to both the EPA and the California Air Resources Board, which regulates air quality in a state that’s had serious ozone and particulate-matter problems for years. He’s researched the effects of both pollutants on the body and helped craft EPA standards for them. Balmes said plant emissions will represent only a portion of particulate and ozone pollution from the petrochemical expansion in Texas. Transportation — diesel trucks, trains, and ships — will add to the burden, he said. (Rail yards and ports are often located in low-income and minority neighborhoods, like Charlton-Pollard.)

Particulate matter and ozone can wreak havoc on the body, Balmes said.

Fine particles, known as PM2.5, are about 20 times smaller than a human hair. When they’re inhaled, they don’t break down, and the body’s immune cells remain in a heightened state of response. Their ability to fight off infection is weakened.

Fine particles often make their way into the bloodstream and trigger cardiovascular problems, such as heart attacks and congestive heart failure. They can also accumulate in the brain, contributing to cognitive decline and strokes.

A 2023 analysis conducted for Public Health Watch by two researchers estimated that 8,405 Texans died from fine-particle pollution in 2016. Exposure to the particles also led to thousands of new cases of Alzheimer’s, asthma, and strokes, the researchers found.

In 2024, an EPA advisory board, on which Balmes served, recommended tightening the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for PM2.5. The EPA said the new standard would prevent 4,500 premature deaths and yield $46 billion in net health benefits over more than a decade. According to federal data, 16 Texas counties, including Jefferson, violate the new standard, which the Trump administration has vowed to abandon**.**

Environmental groups and regulators have been fighting ozone pollution for more than 70 years.

Ozone gas is formed when two pollutants — VOCs and nitrogen oxides — are released from stacks and tailpipes and react in the presence of sunlight. When ozone enters the body, it chemically burns the respiratory system, leading to inflammation. It’s so caustic that it can break down synthetic rubber. Acute exposure can worsen asthma; chronic, high-level exposure can cause permanent lung damage.

The eight-county Houston-Galveston-Brazoria area, with roughly 7.2 million people, has been under continual threat from ozone for two decades. It spent over half of that time classified as being in “serious” or “severe” violation of the EPA’s eight-hour standards. Still, 35 petrochemical projects in the region have been announced or permitted by the TCEQ.

“Adding 35 petrochemical plants to a region that is already in serious ozone [violation] is the wrong way to go in terms of public health,” Balmes said.

Explore all 13 scenes from Texas’ petrochemical expansion at publichealthwatch.org.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Texas clears the way for petrochemical expansion as experts warn of health risks on Jan 7, 2026.


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This story was originally published by the Northern Journal.

This story is co-published by theWrangell Sentineland Northern Journal.

Max Graham
Northern Journal

An Indigenous community is locked in a debate about the pros and cons of a major new mine on their traditional lands — and a big cash payment promised by the developer.

There is strong support, and fierce opposition. A lot of money to be made, and a wild river to protect. The community faces a pivotal choice.

Though this story sounds like it could be unfolding in rural Alaska, a version of it has actually been playing out just across the border with Canada, in northwest British Columbia. Still, it has implications for the Alaskans who live downstream from the proposed mine site.

In a referendum after weeks of heated debate, members of the Tahltan Nation voted in December to overwhelmingly approve a deal with a Canadian mining company that hopes to revive a huge gold and silver mine, called Eskay Creek, which stopped producing in 2008. The project is located above the Unuk River, which flows into Alaska near Ketchikan.

The Tahltans’ backing is a major step forward for the project, and it comes as the Canada and B.C. governments intensify efforts to build more mines in the name of national security and economic growth. Several of the projects are near the border with Alaska, where state and federal elected officials are separately pushing mines that could help wean the U.S. off a foreign supply of minerals used in energy, electronics and weapons.

Just one day after the Tahltan vote, Canada’s federal government announced that it had approved a merger between two multinational mining firms with a condition that calls for advancing two other proposed mines in Tahltan territory. Both projects sit above tributaries of the Stikine River, a major, salmon-bearing waterway that straddles Canada and the U.S. and empties into the ocean nearthe small Southeast Alaska town of Wrangell.

Louie Wagner Jr., a Tsimshian and Tlingit resident of Metlakatla, a Native community at the southern tip of Alaska’s panhandle, said he’s concerned about the health of the Unuk River and its future with mines in its watershed.

Wagner and his family have fished and hunted moose along the Unuk for generations.

“That little river cannot handle it,” Wagner said in a recent phone interview. The Unuk is notable, he added, for its abundance of eulachon, a small, oily fish also known as hooligan that’s a staple for Indigenous communities in Southeast Alaska.

Though rarely discussed in Alaska circles, the Tahltan Nation’s approach to mining has major implications for the industry’s future in the transboundary region. A top U.S. Department of Interior official visited the region last year to learn more about models for how Indigenous nations can partner with mining companies.

There are more than a dozen early-stage mining projects in Tahltan territory, many above rivers that flow into Alaska. And the Eskay Creek vote could serve as a preview of future deals between the Tahltan government and the for-profit mining companies promoting development.

For months, members of the First Nation debated whether to approve a deal, known as an impact benefit agreement, that Tahltan elected leaders had negotiated with Vancouver-based Skeena Resources, the company pushing Eskay Creek.

The specifics of the agreement have not been made public. But Tahltan officials have said it guarantees benefits worth more than $1 billion over the life of the mine, mostly in cash but also in contracts and wages.

The deal also calls for an upfront payment from Skeena, intended to be distributed to individual Tahltan members — to the tune of $7,250 each, according to Tahltan officials. And the agreement reportedly gives the First Nation government some environmental oversight over the mine.

The nation backed the deal with support from more than 77 percent of the roughly 1,750 Tahltans who voted, according to the Tahltan Central Government. Payments are expected to go out to members in 2026.

“Tahltan Central Government is not standing on the sidelines,” Tahltan president Kerry Carlick said in a statement after the vote.  “We are embedding ourselves directly into the governance of environmental protection.”

Tahltan leaders have long worked to navigate political tensions between an expanding mining industry and efforts to protect traditional lands and wildlife.

The Tahltan government has entered into a number of agreements with mining companies. But it also has opposed efforts to mine coal and drill for natural gas near the headwaters of major rivers in the region.

And some Tahltan members have been outspoken critics of the Eskay Creek project and the company promoting it.

In the leadup to the recent vote, arguments erupted on social media, and relationships among community members grew strained, some Eskay Creek opponents said in interviews.

“This is causing internal conflicts,” said Tamara Quock, a Tahltan member who lives in northern B.C. some 350 miles east of the mine site.

Quock said she thinks the promise of the direct payments “enticed” some people to vote in favor of the agreement. Debate over the project, she added, grew more intense after that condition was added to the deal.

Quock said she feels Skeena is “using the Tahltan people” to generate its own profits.

She and other critics have voiced concerns about a perceived lack of transparency and potential conflicts of interest within the First Nation’s government. They also say they are worried about possible environmental impacts from the project, which would involve digging two open pits and storing millions of tons of mining waste above the Unuk River.

Skeena didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Alaska Native leaders, fishermen and environmental advocates who live downstream, in Southeast Alaska, for years have expressed concerns about Eskay Creek and other proposed mines in the region, saying they don’t trust Canadian regulators to safeguard Alaskan interests.

“You can’t cut these watersheds in half and expect to adequately protect them,” said Guy Archibald, executive director of the tribally led Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission. “Right now they’re cutting the baby in half and ignoring the effects on the Alaska side of the border.”

The commission last month filed a legal challenge in B.C. court, asserting that regulators had failed to consult Alaska tribes on several proposed mines in the region, including Eskay Creek.

Meanwhile, after a major spill last year at a Canadian gold mine in the Yukon River watershed, Alaska’s congressional delegation called for more oversight of Canadian mines near transboundary rivers like the Unuk and Stikine. The statement from the delegation — which has strongly supported mine development in Alaska — called for “binding protections, financial assurances, and strong transboundary governance.”

“As British Columbia seeks to advance numerous mines just upstream from Alaska, we are still asking them to fully remediate legacy sites and firmly commit to binding protections for Alaska interests,” Joe Plesha, a spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said in a recent statement. “Senator Murkowski is actively considering new ways to make our B.C. neighbors take Alaskans’ concerns seriously.”

Ottawa and B.C.’s provincial government, meanwhile, are funding new infrastructure projects and prioritizing permitting for energy and resource development projects, including Eskay Creek and the expansion of a huge copper and gold mine in the Stikine watershed, called Red Chris.

Canadian officials say existing regulations are geared to minimize impacts in the shared watersheds. Major projects undergo thorough environmental assessments before they’re approved, a spokesperson with the B.C. agency that leads those reviews, the Environmental Assessment Office, said in an email.

 “Making sure large-scale projects are properly assessed is critical to making sure development is sustainable — to ensure good jobs and economic growth while also protecting the environment and wildlife, and keeping communities healthy and safe,” said the spokesperson, Sarah Plank.

Tahltan officials declined an interview request and did not respond to questions about Alaskans’ concerns or the First Nation’s agreement with Skeena.

Supporters of Eskay Creek say it could be transformational for the Tahltan Nation. Among proponents of the deal is Chad Norman Day, a former Tahltan president who has worked in the mining industry and now runs a consulting firm that does mining-related business.

“The benefits which flow to the Tahltan Nation from here will empower the people and territory unlike anything we have ever seen,” Day said in a statement after the vote.

Many Tahltan people work in mining, and the First Nation already generates revenue from Red Chris and another large operating mine, Brucejack, which started producing gold in 2017.

In 2019, Tahltan citizens voted in favor of an agreement with a different mining company pushing another, much bigger proposed mine partially in the Unuk watershed, called KSM. The outcome of that vote was nearly identical to the recent Eskay one, with about the same percentage in favor.

The first nation also, in the past five years, has entered into two joint decisionmaking agreements with the B.C. government for regulatory reviews of mining projects, including Eskay Creek.

Before it can start producing, Eskay Creek needs an environmental approval from the provincial government. A decision is expected early next year.

The post Indigenous nation to get $7,250-per-person payments as a contentious mine advances upstream of Alaska appeared first on ICT.


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