On October 6th, 2025, Trump approved construction of the infamous Ambler road in Alaska. This road project links to the highway network the Ambler mining district, allowing massive mining operations.
This project, opposed by a local group called Protect the Kobuk, would massively undermine the indigenous practices. According to the US Administration own reports, this would also threaten fish and caribou habitats, on which the indigenous rely to survive. This would also impact air and water quality, and risk poisoning aquifers.
The Ambler District would be exploited by a consortium made of Trilogy Metals and South32. Trilogy Metals is mainly exploiting mines in Alaska. South32 is a mining company head-quartered in Perth, Australia. It has massive operations in Australia, South Africa, Columbia and Chile. South32 is a member of CISL’s Corporate Leaders Group, a network of executives facilitated by CISL.
Environmental assessment
The project was rejected by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in June of 2024.
Their report on the decision lists the impact of the road on the 11 major and hundreds of minor rivers the road would cross all of which are important for the feeding, breeding, overwintering, and spawning of more than 20 species of fish including species critical to the subsistence of the local communities living on the land the road will cross.
It will also cross the migratory and ranging paths of a large caribou herd in the region which acts as a major food source for over 40 communities and is set to be heavily disrupted by the developments
It also cuts through several areas used by locals to gather fruit, vegetation, and to hunt moose and fowl. The development will affect the ability of the local people to harvest several key food sources.
The construction of the road, and runoff from both the vehicles traversing it and the new mines it allows to be created, are liable to result in water pollution downstream of the crossed rivers, as well as in the surrounding wetlands affecting local water supplies and increasing the concentrations of heavy metals like lead.
Unfortunately, Trump revoked this assessment in 2025.
Involvement of the US government
As detailed above, under the Biden administration, the project was closed because the environmental assessments had failed.
But Trump revived it, and revoked the previous environmental assessments. The White House and the US department of war invested significantly in Trilogy Metals (10 and 5% respectively), the former even announced a partnership with Trilogy Metals.
The US department of war announced a partnership with Ambler Metals for strategic minerals. The mines in Ambler District will prop up the US military industrial complex, which is killing people all around the world, including participating in the genocide in Gaza.
South32 and CISL
Where’s CISL in all this?
CISL loves industry, especially if they make billions and if they can sell companies some good greenwashing. For South32, it means participating in the industry forum Corporate Leaders Groups (CLG), that CISL facilitates.
Those CLGs are full of mining companies. Mining is great for greenwashing: you can extract products from indigenous people’s land and still claim that it’s for the energy transition. CISL can even back up your claims by saying that getting out of fossil fuels will need those minerals.
See also and sources
Our social media post about this (link to be put).
Protect the Kobuk is an collective fighting against this project.
The wikipedia article about Ambler Road is instructive.
The Ambler Metals website has 2 press-releases about the US government implication in their operations, here and here.
The US administration internal environmental assessment [direct link, archived].
The Corporate Leaders Group Africa lists South 32 as one of their members [direct link, archived].
