Moose depend on healthy lakes and wetlands for survival, like the vast and unspoiled Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Superior National Forest in Minnesota.
Just over two years ago, wildlife supporters helped block the opening of a massive sulfide ore mine in Superior National Forest which would have threatened the Boundary Waters with heavy metals and sulfide contamination. But now, the federal government is moving to reverse that decision, and we need your help to stop it.
The Boundary Waters is a 1.1 million-acre area of wilderness that is federally protected and home to a wide diversity of wildlife. It’s the most visited wilderness area in America by outdoor enthusiasts, bird watchers, and anglers.
Can you imagine heavy-metal mining—one of the most toxic industries in America—moving in next door? Experience tells us the giant waste piles would leach sulfuric acid and heavy metals into groundwater, rivers and lakes. In Boundary Waters, such a mine would threaten the waters that moose, birds, and other wildlife rely on for hundreds of years, potentially destroying one of America’s most loved wild places.
The need to protect Boundary Waters is widely supported. A broad coalition of outdoors enthusiasts, businesses, scientists, tribes, veterans and environmentalists, as well as more than two-thirds of Minnesotans, are against the mine. That coalition worked to secure lasting protections for the Boundary Waters region, but now that work is all at risk of being reversed.
Please urge the Bureau of Land Management to reject all mining leases within the Boundary Waters’ watershed and prevent mineral leasing from impacting this irreplaceable, pristine wilderness.
NWF stance on hunting: National Wildlife Federation supports hunting because, under professional regulation, wildlife populations are renewable natural resource that can safely sustain taking…the real and fundamental problem facing wildlife is not hunting but, instead is habitat degradation and destruction.