The Rosemont Valley within the Coronado National Forest is a place where you can feel an indelible connection to nature. Spending even a few moments there, you begin to understand the deep, spiritual relationship that people of the Tohono O’odham Nation have with these ancestral lands.
Walking among the majestic oaks, looking down into the valley from the ridge, you are over- whelmed by the vastness of the landscape. Despite its close proximity to Tucson, the land is only minimally disturbed by signs of civilization, and the sounds of rustling leaves and grass are seldom disrupted. This is nature: diverse, raw, and breathtaking.
If the mine is built as planned, most of the land in each of these images would be forever altered. What is now a landscape of undulating hills and rocky mountains would be replaced by steeply terraced mountains of tailings standing about 700 feet above the valley floor.