Issue 001 · May 10, 2026
In a striking win for Indigenous land protection, Pete Lien and Sons formally withdrew its permit to drill for graphite near Pe' Sla, the high mountain meadow at the heart of Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota creation stories, after a week of direct action occupation, a federal temporary restraining order, and sustained legal pressure from NDN Collective and allied tribes. NDN Collective's own announcement is the primary source here, and it is worth reading in full: the organization names the specific combination of forces that produced the outcome, which is a model worth studying. The win is real, though the underlying permit framework that allowed the drilling application in the first place remains unchanged.
Issue 001 · May 10, 2026
Grist's Indigenous coverage this week frames the Pe' Sla victory within the larger pattern of Indigenous-led environmental resistance, connecting the Black Hills win to a documented record of Native communities halting or delaying extractive projects. Tristan Ahtone's team at Grist has been building this beat carefully, and the framing here is consistent with the research showing that Indigenous land protection produces measurable climate outcomes. The story is worth reading alongside the NDN Collective primary source.
Issue 001 · May 10, 2026
ICT's account of the Pe' Sla victory is the single best long read of the week, not because it is the longest piece but because it synthesizes the full arc of the fight: the U.S. Forest Service permit issued over tribal objections, the NDN Collective lawsuit alleging NEPA and Religious Freedom Restoration Act violations, the direct-action occupation of the site, the federal temporary restraining order, and finally the withdrawal of the permit by Pete Lien and Sons. ICT names the specific combination of legal, ceremonial, and physical presence that produced the outcome, and it does so with the kind of sourcing that privileges tribal voices over agency statements. Read this alongside the NDN Collective primary release (candidate 7) and the Native Sun News coverage (candidate 132) for the full picture. The story matters beyond its immediate facts: it is a working model of how Indigenous communities can use multiple pressure points simultaneously, and it arrives in a week when Bad River is doing exactly that on Line 5.
Background
· 2024
· Wisconsin Examiner
On April 17, 2024, twenty-five years after his death at 51, Walt Bresette was inducted to the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame. A Red Cliff Ojibwe activist, author, and storyteller, Bresette led the 1996 Bad River train blockade against sulfuric acid shipments to the Crandon mine site, co-founded the Midwest Treaty Network, and drove the campaign that produced Wisconsin's Prove It First mining moratorium law. He was a central treaty rights organizer through the spearfishing years.
Background
· 2021
· earthjustice
The Menominee Nation's seven-year legal and political fight against the Back Forty open-pit mine along the Menominee River produced a decisive 2021 ruling. Aquila Resources withdrew its Michigan wetlands permits after the tribe's challenge and a court ruled the project would have a probable negative effect on Menominee sacred sites. In December 2021, Aquila was absorbed by Gold Resource Corp; Chairman Ronald Corn Sr. responded that the merger did not change the tribe's opposition.
Background
· 2015
· ICT (Indian Country Today)
On March 24, 2015, Gogebic Taconite president Bill Williams pulled the company's preapplication for the 4.5-mile open-pit iron mine that would have produced eight million tons of taconite annually over the Bad River watershed. Six Wisconsin Ojibwe bands, led by Bad River, had organized the EPA review and grassroots resistance that surfaced the wetlands the company claimed did not exist. Williams cited 'unexpected extensive wetlands' and EPA permit uncertainty.
Background
· 2003
· itep
In a closing chapter of the long Crandon Mine fight, the Forest County Potawatomi Community partnered with the Sokaogon Chippewa Community to purchase the proposed mine site from Nicolet Minerals, ending decades of threat to the wild rice waters between Mole Lake and the Wolf River headwaters. The tribes hold the land in trust. Walter Bresette's organizing coalition, the Midwest Treaty Network, had built much of the resistance that made the buyout possible.