How a profit-sharing agreement could be a new model for mining on Indigenous land

In 2020, when Brian Mason began his first term as Chairman for the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation, gold miners came calling. Just a few years before, Integra Resources, a Canadian mining company, had acquired an abandoned gold and silver mine on the tribe’s homelands in southwestern Idaho, but before work began, they had an unusual request: could the tribe and the company establish a partnership that would benefit both?

“There are a lot of things that were different as we started to work with Integra,” Mason said. Early efforts included invitations to tribal members to the mine while impact studies were conducted as well as initial site surveys.

Historically, mining has been ecologically costly and even deadly to Indigenous peoples around the world. The industry