Kawerak backs moratorium on seabed mining off Alaska, sends resolution to AFN convention

Kawerak, Inc.'s board voted unanimously Oct. 1 to back a moratorium on seabed mineral exploration, leasing and extraction in Alaska's federal waters and the Outer Continental Shelf until environmental, subsistence, cultural and economic impacts are understood and affected tribes are fully consulted. Kawerak announced the vote Oct. 7.

Kawerak, the regional tribal consortium for the Bering Strait region's 20 federally recognized tribes, joined Sealaska and the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska in sending a parallel resolution to the Alaska Federation of Natives. AFN delegates meet in Anchorage Oct. 22 to 24, and the organization says resolutions passed at convention set its priorities for the year.

The resolution asks the Interior Department to suspend lease-sale consideration and avoid issuing a Proposed Leasing Notice. Before any future development, it calls for government-to-government consultation, baseline studies, Indigenous Knowledge and a full environmental impact statement that includes a no-lease option.

The board first opposed seabed mining in federal waters of Norton Sound and the Bering Sea last spring. In a June 8 letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and federal ocean energy officials, Kawerak President Melanie Bahnke wrote that the Norton Sound mineral sands area overlaps the summer red king crab closure zone, 10 to 15 miles offshore, where the 2025 summer commercial crab fishery was valued at $3.54 million. "We do not want to be the guinea pigs for an experimental industry," Bahnke wrote.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management opened the review in January, seeking input on about 113.7 million acres in six areas: heavy mineral sands in Norton Sound and Goodnews Bay, the Aleutian Arc, the Canada Basin, the Chukchi Borderland and seamounts in the Gulf of Alaska. The agency says the request is not a decision to hold a sale. If one is held, it would be the first Outer Continental Shelf minerals lease sale offshore Alaska. "Alaska's offshore holds strategic potential for the minerals that drive American industry, defense and next-generation technologies," said Acting Director Matt Giacona.

The city of Nome supports responsible development of the sands offshore. "Offshore mineral development should proceed with appropriate safeguards to ensure that other coastal resources are not jeopardized," said Mayor Kenneth A. Hughes III.

Public comment closed April 1 with more than 68,000 submissions logged. BOEM has issued Proposed Leasing Notices for American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands but not for Alaska. Interior's 2027 budget justification lists both December 2026 and 2027 as possible dates for an Alaska sale.