NETT LAKE — The Bois Forte Band is expressing “profound disappointment” in the wake of last week’s U.S. Senate vote to terminate a 20-year ban on mining and mineral exploration affective 225,000 acres of federal land within the Superior National Forest.
The land in question is located in the Upper Rainy River watershed and drains into the 1.1-million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
In a statement posted to Facebook, dated Tuesday, April 21, Bois Forte Tribal Chairman Carlos Hernandez said the action represents a significant setback to efforts to protect the BWCAW as well as the Bois Forte Band’s rights to resources under the 1854 Treaty.
“We are gravely concerned about the passage of H.J. Resolution 140 and the risks it presents to our ancestral homelands,” stated Hernandez.
According to the statement, Bois Forte band members have depended upon the lands and waters of the region to sustain their way of life. “In this sense, the 1854 Treaty is not a relic of the past— it is a living, binding agreement that guarantees band members’ right to hunt, fish, and gather,” it states. “Our treaty rights are inseparable from the health of the natural resources that sustain them,” Hernandez added. “Without clean waters, abundant wildlife, and thriving ecosystems, those rights cannot be meaningfully exercised.”
Hernandez said any mining within the 1854 ceded territory must “at a minimum be truly safe, responsible, and guided by strong environmental protections and meaningful tribal consultation. H.J. Resoution 140 does not embrace these values and instead places our most vital and irreplaceable resources at risk.”
The resolution, pushed by Eighth District Rep. Pete Stauber, purports to overturn a 20-year mining ban in a major watershed just upstream of the BWCAW. The ban was enacted in 2023 by the Biden administration. The legality of Stauber’s resolution is expected to be challenged in court.