Yellowstone Gateway Mineral Withdrawal

In October 2018, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke signed a 20-year mineral withdrawal for 30,000 acres of National Forest lands adjacent to the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness and Yellowstone National Park. This area includes Paradise Valley, Emigrant Gulch and Crevice Mountain, and is important migration habitat for mule deer and elk. Once threatened by two industrial scale gold mines, this rugged high alpine landscape is now protected from the adverse impacts of new mines for 20 years. Congress is currently working to pass the Yellowstone Gateway Protection Act to make this ban permanent.