On August 18th, 2025, one day before the USFS planned to hand over 2,400 acres of public land to a foreign mining company, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency injunction temporarily blocking the land transfer that would have handed Oak Flat, AZ to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of the Rio Tinto and BHP corporations. The court ruling temporarily stops the irreversible destruction of a place that holds deep spiritual significance for the San Carlos Apache tribe, offers hundreds of top notch climbing routes and boulder problems, and for 15 years was the site of the world’s largest bouldering comp—The Phoenix Bouldering Contest. After two decades of work by Access Fund, this injunction provides a lifeline to the permanent protection of Oak Flat.
The next day, President Trump called Access Fund and our co-plaintiffs “Anti-American” because we are working to prevent the public land giveaway. We disagree. Respecting the religious freedoms of the San Carlos Apache, or any other religious group, and protecting our public lands—including climbing landscapes—from being handed over to a foreign company is uniquely American. Our fight to protect Oak Flat, a national treasure, is the very essence of the American spirit.
So Access Fund will go back to court to defend Oak Flat, and our case will argue that the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) is inadequate because it does not consider the wide ranging and profound environmental impacts of the proposed mining project. Further, our case argues that the government appraisal of the land and subsurface minerals is absurdly low and does not justify the land exchange.
While the latter sounds like a simple administrative oversight, we have deep concern about handing over public land containing an estimated $150 billion in copper ore to a foreign mining conglomerate for a minute fraction of its market value. That’s not protecting America’s interests, that’s giving them away. We know that Resolution Copper is not interested in what’s best for our country—it’s focused on maximizing profits for its shareholders, the largest of whom is the Chinese government.
Access Fund is not opposed to mining for critical minerals or the strategic pursuit of energy independence, but we are opposed to mining techniques that will completely destroy public lands, sacred sites, and climbing areas, especially when there are alternative options. Mining has coexisted with climbing and sacred sites for decades at Oak Flat, but the FEIS for the proposed mining project does not even consider viable alternatives that will not destroy the landscape. We support a balanced approach to mining and energy development that considers the entire range of public land values as well as Native American sacred lands.
President Eisenhower had good reasons in 1955 for designating Oak Flat as protected land within the Tonto National Forest, preventing mining and preserving its sacred status for the Apache people and other tribes. The public land giveaway would cast those protections aside, and the proposed Resolution Copper block cave mining would result in a one mile deep by two mile wide crater that would permanently destroy Oak Flat, damage an invaluable climbing area, desecrate sacred lands, devastate a sensitive ecosystem, risk groundwater depletion, and pollute water supplies—all to create a relatively small scale, temporary economic boost in Arizona. If federally protected public lands can be traded to multinational corporations whenever something of financial value is discovered, what is the point of those protections? Where else will Native American Tribes, climbers, and other user groups be pushed aside?
At Access Fund, we are defined by perseverance, consistency, and grit. Just like the climbers we represent, we don’t back down from challenges—whether it’s protecting Wilderness climbing, defending the integrity of our public lands and climbing areas, or safeguarding sacred sites like Oak Flat.
As we prepare for court, I hope you’ll continue to stand with us. Together, we can fight to ensure the final decision on Oak Flat protects what we love—our climbing, our communities, and our shared public lands. We will continue to keep the climbing community up-to-date.
With gratitude,
Heather Thorne
Executive Director, Access Fund