The one-sided online push to stop Pebble Mine for good
Conservation groups, Indigenous communities, and fishing advocates have been pushing hard against the Alaska project for years
For the better part of two decades, the Canada-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. has been trying to get at the copper and other rare minerals in southwest Alaska, a site now known as Pebble Mine. The Trump administration brought the potentially catastrophic project closer to fruition, but it was ultimately stalled. Now, Indigenous and environmental groups are pushing the Biden administration to finally put a stake through the heart of Pebble Mine and permanently preserve Bristol Bay for future generations.
When it comes to lobbying the public on the issue online, Indigenous and environmental groups practically have the playing field to themselves. All the parties interested in stopping Pebble Mine have organized under a coalition aptly named Stop Pebble Mine, which has spent $37,498 on Facebook ads since May of 2018.
Last year, the coalition’s ads were heavily focused on pushing Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan - the latter of whom was up for re-election last year - especially after footage came out with Pebble’s executives acting like they had the senators all but in their pockets.
So far this year, though, they’ve only spent $4,816 on two relatively small campaigns: one targeted at Alaskans, and another at 25-to-44-year olds in the DMV area, presumably to influence U.S. government aides and other political operatives.
Stop Pebble Mine’s ads targeted at folks in the DMV attempt to explain how the mine would decimate the bountiful salmon population, and in turn, the region’s Indigenous population that’s subsisted off the salmon for millenia. Their ads targeted at Alaskans attempt to organize them against the mine. You can check out their full video ads in the Facebook Ad Library.
If the above ad on the right looks familiar, it may be because you’ve seen almost the exact same ad from NRDC on Instagram (as well as in The Hill). We estimate that the group has spent about $25k on that Instagram ad and others in campaigns this year that seek to explain how vital Bristol Bay’s wildlife is to the Indigenous people there or to organize against the mine. Their Facebook + Instagram campaigns are mostly targeted toward young adults in California, Oregon, Washington state, Alaska, and the DMV area.
While NRDC and the Stop Pebble Mine page have been the most active with regards to digital ads, coalition members and other parties interested in preserving Bristol Bay have been much more vocal about it on social media. Since Joe Biden was inaugurated, these groups have made 439 posts about Pebble Mine across Facebook and Instagram, almost all of which coming from environmental, Indigenous, and hunting- and fishing-oriented conservation groups.
On Facebook, posts from NRDC, the National Audubon Society, and conservation groups about Pebble Mine have racked up the most engagement, while on Instagram, posts from Sea Legacy, Only One, and fishing groups have been the most successful. It should be noted, though, that this is all relative within the campaign to #VetoPebbleMine - in total, all of these posts have only earned 121k engagements over the past five months.
As far as we can tell, there have been very, very online campaigns, if any, from the mine’s virtually only proponent, which is Northern Dynasty Minerals itself. It seems that the bulk of their recent PR strategy consists of placing favorable press hits in small industry publications, like one from earlier this week in Copper Investing News that implies that developing Pebble Mine would be necessary to meet the copper demands of America’s rapid transition to clean energy.