Mining

Mining on America’s Public Lands

Since our inception, EcoFlight has worked to expose the mining industry’s increasing pressure to open up new hard rock mining operations near and sometimes in and under established wilderness and proposed wilderness areas throughout the Rocky Mountain region. We work closely with national and regional groups such as Earthworks, The Rock Creek Alliance, The Bristol Bay Alliance, The Wilderness Society, NRDC, The National Wildlife Federation, The Southern Utah Wilderness Association, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the Rocky Mountain Energy Campaign, Idaho Conservation League, Colorado Environmental Coalition, The High Country Citizens’ Alliance and many other local and national groups throughout the Rocky Mountain region. Our flights for elected officials and community leaders, press and editorial boards and concerned citizens help these constituents grasp the complexity of current policies and practices and the potential impacts these polices and practices can have on remaining intact wild lands. On every flight, EcoFlight captures images that are then distributed to press and conservation partners, extending still further the educational power of the aerial view of mining threats to America’s last great wild places.

EcoFlight provided flight and flight support for two other exciting projects in 2007 and 2008. The Photographic Industry Campaign brought well-known and local photographers together for flights that collected aerial images of silver mining. These images were used in a coordinated campaign that advocated for the use of responsibly and environmentally mined silver.  Flights for the Mercury Campaign will support educational efforts focused on reducing mercury emissions from gold mining in Nevada, Utah and Idaho.

Much of the western landscape we work to protect is impacted by the outdated 1872 Mining Law. Signed into law before Custer’s Last Stand by Ulysses S Grant, this law was designed to promote the settlement and development of publicly owned lands in the newly opened western United States. EcoFlight’s long time conservation partner, Earthworks, is a leader in the fight to reform 1872 Mining Law, which even today allows the mining industry to buy valuable mineral bearing public lands for the set 1872 price of no more than $5 per acre. To learn more about this archaic law and the devastating effects it continues to have on America’s western public lands, please visit http://mineralpolicy.org/1872.cfm