Just hours before the deal was set to go through, a federal appeals court temporarily blocked a land transfer in Arizona on Monday that would ultimately lead to the destruction of a site sacred to Western Apache people.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ temporary restraining order is the latest in a long-running saga in which the U.S. Forest Service has planned to transfer the land to a mining company, Resolution Copper, while the San Carlos Apache Tribe and a coalition of environmental groups have fought to protect the sacred site of Oak Flat, or Chí’chil Biłdagoteel in Apache.

The company has worked for two decades to gain access to the 2,200 acres of land in Tonto National Forest that contains both the sacred site and one of the world’s largest untapped copper deposits. The restr

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