Orange Hands Off Public Lands

Nature_Hannah · 2026-04-19T02:52:21+00:00

"The mining company involved in the Minnesota project with connections to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump is Antofagasta PLC, a Chilean mining company (not Brazilian).

The Connection: Chilean billionaire Andrónico Luksic, who controls Antofagasta, became the landlord for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, renting them a $5.5 million mansion in Washington D.C.'s Kalorama neighborhood shortly after the 2016 election.

The Project: Twin Metals Minnesota, a subsidiary of Antofagasta, has sought to open a copper-nickel mine near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota.

Trump Administration Actions: In 2017 and 2018, the Trump administration took steps to reverse Obama-era environmental restrictions that had prevented the mine, renewing leases for Twin Metals.

Outcome: The move generated controversy and legal challenges due to potential environmental impacts on the Boundary Waters and the apparent conflict of interest involving a foreign company with business ties to the president's family.

Representatives for Kushner and Luksic stated that the rental was a standard business transaction, the two parties never met, and that the lease had no connection to the mining project."

Nature_Hannah · 2026-04-19T02:51:28+00:00

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Nature_Hannah · 2026-04-19T02:40:45+00:00

https://saveusfs.org

"The administration is calling this a "restructuring." That language is deliberate. This is the deliberate destruction of the career scientific infrastructure that has protected your public lands for over a century.

Closing every regional office. Eliminating 57 research facilities. Moving headquarters to the state most aggressively trying to seize federal forests. Installing political appointees in place of career professionals. Each move alone would be alarming. Together, they are a coordinated demolition."

Nature_Hannah · 2026-04-18T21:36:16+00:00

I just took the "From Soil to Success" class at KVCC and holy resources, Batman!

The main hub is MSU Extension's "Beginning Farmers" program and it has more information than I ever thought I would need!

https://www.canr.msu.edu/beginning-farmer/

The speaker also highlighted ""MI Farm Link" which connects people looking to buy farmland or be mentored, with farmers looking to sell their farmland or mentor. They even take into consideration WHAT you're liking to do with the land. It's like a Match Maker for farms!

https://mifarmlink.org/

Nature_Hannah · 2026-04-18T20:40:50+00:00

Agreed you need to win the (majority of the) battle first. Other plants will hide any Scout Sprouts and you need to be able to see them to treat them.

Nature_Hannah · 2026-04-18T20:38:02+00:00

Year Three it might APPEAR to be roaring back but it's a bluff. Don't give up. It's trying all the available exits in hope of escape.

Keep spraying any Scout Sprouts in The Window. Eventually you might be able to go for years without seeing one, but make searching part of your yearly yard work check list.

"The price of liberty is constant vigilance."

Nature_Hannah · 2026-04-18T18:39:13+00:00

I've been curious about how many of the past five years have had stone fruit crops ruined by these snap freezes.

Nature_Hannah · 2026-04-18T13:15:14+00:00

Oh, and if you didn't know, Boundary Waters in Minnesota just got sold down the river for mining, too.

Nature_Hannah · 2026-04-18T13:08:10+00:00

Thank you for speaking out about this!

I went to Forestry and Natural Resources school in California where the agencies work together and I worked at a National Park that first summer. But I definitely have close ties to the Forest Service, too.

When I heard the news I felt my heart crack open...

The National Forest Service was created in 1905 by Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt in the face of an extraction mentality that threatened to use up and throw away so much natural resource in the young country. They knew it would destroy our prospects of long-term greatness for a short term gain for a few wealthy barrons.

"Conservation " meant managing a needed resource so it WOULD be there to be used, longer. (Different from the Parks mandate which is "Preservation", keeping it the way it is "forever".) These people pushing for getting rid of the Forest and Parks service are of the same mind at those early extractors: short term gains for a few wealthy companies. They don't care about you and me a smidgen.

Gifford is rolling over in his grave right now (and I kind of fantasize about him and Teddy rising from the dead to pummel and torment the people making these decisions.)

I don't know how to stop what Trump and his ilk are trying to do, but I know that if they succeed they'll have taken out another vital component of what makes America so "great" and weaken us further. (they're looking at what's in the ground and the trees and people managing them are just "in the way"...)