With two companies proposing gold mines near Yellowstone National Park, then-Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced, last November, a temporary mining ban on roughly 30,000 acres of public national forest land around Yellowstone, effectively blocking any new large-scale mines. But the fight isn’t over.
The moratorium lasts only two years. It is scheduled to be reconsidered in 2018 by the administration of Donald J. Trump, a president whose love of gold is as subtle as that of King Louis XIV. Trump’s Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, a Republican and formerly Montana’s sole congressman, had criticized the plans to mine near Yellowstone. But he was absent from the ceremony announcing the temporary ban.
The battle over the mines is also set to reignite as the borders of America’s national parks turn increasingly into fault lines. Industries that built the old west — logging, gas drilling and mining — are colliding in an increasingly crowded region against new industries such as fly fishing, backpacking and rafting; the ecotourism economy built on the values of scenery, silence, and protection of water and wildlife.
LINK (via: Explore Parts Unknown)
