Southeast Alaska Tribes Deliver 30,000 Letters to BC Officials on Mining

Skeena Gold + Silver's Eskay Creek among BC projects risking downstream waters and fish

Victoria, BC — Nearly 30,000 messages were delivered to British Columbia (BC) lawmakers today, urging them to pause the permitting of massive mining developments in the headwaters of the Taku, Stikine, and Unuk Rivers until the impacted Tribes have been consulted. Messages were collected by Earthjustice and Re:wild working with the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission (SEITC), a consortium of 14 Tribal Nations downstream from the mines whose ancestral territory spans the Canada-U.S. border.

The messages underscore BC’s duty under international human rights law to secure the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples impacted by the mines.

“We are calling for our inherent rights to be recognized as they pertain to the traditional territory we’ve relied on and stewarded for thousands of years,” said SEITC Assistant Executive Director Lee Wagner, who is Tsimshian, Haida, and Tlingit of the Niisk’iyaa Laxgibuu (wolf clan). “BC’s decision to exclude us from decisions that directly impact our communities and wild salmon threatens who we are as a People.”

At least eight proposed and operating mines threaten these transboundary watersheds, including the Eskay Creek Mine on the Unuk River. The Unuk River is home to abundant runs of salmon and eulachon, a prized fish central to the Indigenous peoples’ food security, identity, and culture. The open-pit gold-silver mine would process up to 10,000 tons of rock each day for 13 years, dumping its tailings and acid-generating waste into natural lakes. The Eskay Creek Mine is among 18 resource projects the Environmental Assessment Office has fast-tracked, and a final decision is expected by November 26.

“The ecological hotspot that the Tsimshian, Haida, and Tlingit peoples have safeguarded for millennia spans the U.S.-Canada border, and they deserve to be consulted about decisions that affect the watershed of the Stikine, Taku, and Unuk Rivers,” said Nina Hadley, Re:wild’s senior director of guardians. “These rivers are profoundly significant to their culture and are critical to the health of the Tongass temperate rainforest.”

In 2020, SEITC filed an international human rights complaint against the federal government of Canada. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights agreed in the fall of 2023 that mining practices in BC may violate the fundamental human rights of the Southeast Alaska Tribes.

“The provincial government is blatantly ignoring the rights of Indigenous peoples to protect their traditional territory from toxic mining pollution,” said Earthjustice Supervising Senior Attorney Ramin Pejan. “Thousands of people have raised their voice in opposition, and the government should take notice.”

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Media Contacts

Timna Axel, taxel@earthjustice.org Senior Public Affairs and Communications Strategist, Earthjustice Sonia Luokkala, seitccomms@gmail.com Communications Director, SEITC