The Rainy River Watershed on the Superior National Forest is home to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). It also contains deposits of copper, nickel, and trace metals, and copper-nickel mining has been proposed adjacent to and upstream of the BWCAW. In 2017, the US Department of Agriculture proposed withdrawing land in the Rainy River Watershed within the Superior National Forest from mineral leasing, a position it reversed in 2018. These developments highlight the potential tradeoff between economic benefits from mining and concerns about its negative economic consequences for the local recreational and amenity-based economy. Previous studies of mining in the Superior National Forest focus on static effects on a single industry (e.g., mining) at some unspecified point over a medium-run horizon. We draw on these studies and the economics literature to provide a unified analysis of the effect of the proposed mining development on income and employment over time. Our results suggest that the proposed mining would lead to a boom-bust cycle that is typical of resource extraction economies, exacerbated by the likely negative effect on the recreation industry.

中文翻译：

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高级国家森林拟议中的 20 年矿产租赁退出分析

苏必利尔国家森林上的雨河流域是边界水域独木舟区荒野 (BWCAW) 的所在地。它还包含铜、镍和微量金属矿床，并且已提议在 BWCAW 附近和上游开采铜镍矿。2017 年，美国农业部提议从矿产租赁中收回位于高级国家森林内的雨河流域的土地，但在 2018 年扭转了这一立场。这些发展突显了采矿的经济效益与其负面经济后果的担忧之间的潜在权衡为当地的娱乐和休闲经济。先前对高级国家森林采矿的研究侧重于中期范围内某个未指定点对单一行业（例如采矿）的静态影响。我们利用这些研究和经济学文献，对拟议的采矿开发对收入和就业的影响进行了统一分析。我们的研究结果表明，拟议的采矿业将导致典型的资源开采经济的繁荣-萧条周期，并因对娱乐业可能产生的负面影响而加剧。