How Alaska Native communities navigate a potential $170 billion gold mine

Japanese researchers find that simple ‘support’ or ‘opposition’ cannot capture the full complexity of Alaska Native communities’ decision-making

Kyushu University

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Japanese researchers find that simple ‘support’ or ‘opposition’ cannot capture the full complexity of Alaska Native communities’ decision-making

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Credit: Hiroko Ikuta/ Kyushu University

Fukuoka, Japan—Sitting at the northwestern edge of North America, Alaska stretches across a vast Arctic land of wilderness, culture, and wealth beneath the surface. Among its resources is the Donlin Gold deposit, located in southwestern Alaska’s Kuskokwim River basin. As one of the world’s largest undeveloped gold mines, it holds an estimated 39 million ounces worth more than $170 billion at today’s prices.

A study recently published in the Journal of Anthropological Research analyzes the region’s complex debates surrounding resource development and cultural survival. It finds that Alaska Native communities hold multiple, often conflicting roles in the mine’s development.

“To understand the situation today, we have to go back to 1971,” says Hiroko Ikuta, Associate Professor at Kyushu University’s International Student Center and the study’s first author. That year, the U.S. Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), transferring 11% of land and resource rights to Alaska Native peoples. The law, however, required them to organize as for-profit corporations, turning Indigenous individuals into shareholders.

With gold prices surging and most permits approved, the Donlin project is now closer to a final decision than ever. If the mine proceeds, Native corporations would receive billions in revenue while local residents gain priority access to jobs.

Yet alongside the cash economy runs a parallel system of culture and survival.

“Subsistence activities such as hunting and fishing are not hobbies in this region,” explains Ikuta, drawing on two decades of living in Alaska. In Western Alaska, these practices are essential to daily life, with annual harvests exceeding 172 kilograms per person—roughly three times the average annual meat and seafood consumption in Japan. “For them, salmon, moose, and other wild foods are as important as rice is across East Asia.”

One of the major concerns surrounding the Donlin project is its impact on this subsistence system. With limited road access, transportation would rely on barges along the Kuskokwim River, potentially disturbing salmon spawning grounds.

The extraction method adds another layer of risk. Cyanide leaching, used to separate gold from rock, leaves behind toxic waste stored in large tailing dams. Such dams have failed at mines elsewhere, and some residents fear the environmental risks are being understated. Several local communities have filed lawsuits demanding further review.

Yet community opinions cannot be easily divided into “support” or “opposition”, as they experience the risks differently. For example, downstream Yup’ik communities, who rely heavily on salmon for winter food storage, are most concerned about water contamination, while upstream Northern Dene communities focus more on land-based ecological impacts. Shareholders living in cities like Anchorage, meanwhile, stand to benefit from corporate dividends while relying little on subsistence practices.

These divisions can even run through a single person. “The same person can be a corporate shareholder, a subsistence harvester, and a parent worrying for future generations,” says Ikuta. “These identities do not cancel each other out. They collide and coexist.”

Ikuta is currently continuing her research on how mine tailings affect subsistence hunting and fishing, hoping to provide communities with more objective data for future decision-making.

As resource development and environmental pressures, including climate change, mount on traditional lands, Indigenous communities worldwide must increasingly navigate the tension between economic opportunity, sovereignty, and responsibility.

“In Alaska, there have been cases where communities successfully balanced development, cultural survival, and environmental stewardship,” says Ikuta. “I don’t have an answer on what sustainable development should look like for Indigenous peoples. However, any approach may need to consider the diversity of Indigenous communities, their perspectives on well-being, and how externally imposed frameworks shape outcomes.”

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For more information about this research, see “Donlin Gold and the Politics of Extraction: Navigating Indigenous Sovereignty, Native Corporations, and Subsistence in Southwestern Alaska,” Hiroko Ikuta, Ryo Kubota, Journal of Anthropological Research, https://doi.org/10.1086/740858

About Kyushu University 
Founded in 1911, Kyushu University is one of Japan's leading research-oriented institutions of higher education, consistently ranking as one of the top ten Japanese universities in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the QS World Rankings. Located in Fukuoka, on the island of Kyushu—the most southwestern of Japan’s four main islands—Kyushu U sits in a coastal metropolis frequently ranked among the world’s most livable cities and historically known as Japan’s gateway to Asia. Its multiple campuses are home to around 19,000 students and 8,000 faculty and staff. Through its VISION 2030, Kyushu U will “drive social change with integrative knowledge.” By fusing the spectrum of knowledge, from the humanities and arts to engineering and medical sciences, Kyushu U will strengthen its research in the key areas of decarbonization, medicine and health, and environment and food, to tackle society’s most pressing issues.

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Journal

Journal of Anthropological Research

DOI

10.1086/740858 

Method of Research

Case study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Donlin Gold and the Politics of Extraction: Navigating Indigenous Sovereignty, Native Corporations, and Subsistence in Southwestern Alaska

Article Publication Date

25-May-2026

 

When ‘sloppy’ decisions are actually smart

Universiteit van Amsterdam

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From a young age most people are told to be rational: weigh costs and benefits, pick the option that pays off best. But a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by Marta C. Couto, Fernando P. Santos (Socially Intelligent Artificial Systems group at the University of Amsterdam), and Christian Hilbe at the Interdisciplinary Transformation University in Linz suggests that in social situations, people who are a bit less precise – a bit more ‘noisy’ – can sometimes come out ahead.

Studying how people learn in social situations

Using mathematical and computational models from evolutionary game theory, the researchers studied how individuals learn to act in strategic situations where their outcomes depend on what others do as well, such as negotiating, sharing tasks and deciding whether to help others. In these models, each individual has a sensitivity to outcomes: some strongly gravitate towards strategies that seem to work best, while others learn more erratically and sometimes stick with suboptimal choices.

Most theories and models assume this sensitivity is the same for everyone and fixed over time. The new work breaks both assumptions. The team asked: what happens when people differ in how sharply they react to rewards – and when that very trait can evolve?

The surprise: high sensitivity is not always the winning approach. To see why, the researchers explored classic ‘games’ that capture social dilemmas.

To donate or not to donate? That’s the question

In a donation game, one person can help another by paying a cost – for example, spending time or resources so someone else benefits. Helping is good for the other person but always costly for you in the short term. In this kind of strict, competitive setting, highly sensitive learners quickly realise that holding back pays off for them: they donate less and earn more. As this gives a clear edge over being less sensitive, an evolutionary arms race in short-term gains emerges, even if the group as a whole ends up worse off.

The office kitchen problem

Things flip in a snowdrift game, illustrated by a shared office kitchen. Everyone likes it clean, but each hope someone else will scrub the sink. If nobody cleans, everyone loses. In this kind of situation, being less sensitive can become a strategic asset. Those who care a bit less about the immediate payoff clean less often, nudging more sensitive colleagues to do the dirty work. Similar phenomena are known in psychology as ‘strategic incompetence’ and in biology as the ‘red‑king effect’: moving slower, or caring less about small gains, can shift the burden to others.

Different games, different outcomes

Over the long run, these short-term advantages play out very differently. In donation games, the harsh, competitive setting keeps rewarding sharper and sharper learners, so over time people become increasingly focused on immediate gains. In most snowdrift games, sensitivity also increases at first but then settles at a moderate level: beyond that point, being even more ‘rational’ no longer pays off. A third type, coordination games, behaves differently again: here the population can split, with some individuals evolving to be highly sensitive and others remaining more relaxed, so that both learning styles coexist side by side.

Imperfection is not always a flaw

The broader lesson: noisy, imperfect decision‑making is not always a flaw. In a world full of interdependent choices, sometimes slowing down, caring a bit less about every small gain, or tolerating ‘sloppiness’ can be the smarter long‑term strategy.

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2529959123 

Article Title

Evolution of noisy learning in games

 

New report offers solutions for the disparity between how mutual funds and ETFs are taxed

US Tax code treats the two investments very differently

Brookings Institution

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More than half of all American households own a mutual fund or an exchange-traded fund (ETF), according to a recent survey. Over the past several decades, ownership of these investment products has become common. In many ways, the two kinds of funds are very similar. Both combine money from many people to invest in a broad group of stocks, bonds, and other assets. This enables investors to spread risk across a portfolio of companies, reducing exposure to any single stock while increasing the chances of making a profit and growing savings.

However, there is a key difference between mutual funds and ETFs. Currently, the U.S. tax code treats the two investment products in very different ways, with the result that investors must pay significantly more taxes on mutual funds than on ETFs. In a new report, Brookings Institution scholar Elena Patel argues that this disparity is unfair, especially for middle- and lower-income investors, who are more likely to put their money into mutual funds rather than ETFs. She also examines strategies to adjust the tax code to level the playing field, making it more fair, straightforward, and efficient.

“Many investors don’t realize that this difference exists,” says Patel, who is co-director of the Brookings Tax Policy Center. “It’s created an uneven playing field for millions of Americans.” She says the current tax code penalizes mutual fund investors, collectively costing them billions of dollars a year in excess taxes. She collaborated on the report with Matthew C. Ringgenberg, a professor of finance at the University of Utah and an expert on mutual funds and ETFs.

The main difference in how these funds are taxed lies in what happens when shares in the fund are sold. When an investor withdraws money from a mutual fund, the fund manager may have to sell some of the underlying assets to generate cash to give to the investor. If the fund’s assets have increased in value since the investor first bought them, this sale triggers a capital gains tax not only for that investor, but for all investors—even those who haven’t sold their shares.

Patel and others argue that this is unfair, because it requires all investors to pay taxes, not only those who have sold their shares. The key issue, she says, is the timing. Both ETF and mutual fund investors will eventually have to pay taxes on their gains, but mutual fund investors must often pay earlier, often years earlier, which can significantly reduce their overall gains. The difference in timing enables ETF investments to outperform mutual fund investments—even when the two kinds of funds hold exactly the same stocks and bonds.

Millions of Americans have long relied on mutual funds as their primary vehicle for diversified investing, particularly for retirement. Ownership of ETFs didn’t become popular until the past two decades, but over that time their use has expanded significantly.

Millions of Americans now own ETFs, and many own both kinds of funds. The two kinds of funds often include the same stocks and bonds, which makes the difference in how they are taxed even more stark. This is even more true because ETF ownership rises sharply as income goes up. Mutual fund ownership, by contrast, is more evenly distributed across all income levels. As a result, the current tax structure for mutual funds and ETFs tends to deliver larger benefits to those with higher incomes.

Several recent legislative proposals have tried to reduce or eliminate this tax disparity. In 2021, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced a proposal to bring ETF tax treatment in line with that of mutual funds. The proposal was released as a discussion draft but was never enacted. More recently, the bipartisan GROWTH Act has proposed moving in the opposite direction by essentially bringing mutual fund taxation much closer to the way ETFs are treated. Each approach has distinct implications for investors, for market efficiency, and for tax revenues. Some experts worry that taxing ETFs like mutual funds could exacerbate market volatility as well as market downturns. More broadly, eliminating the ETF exemption would mean that ETF shareholders would face the inequity of being taxed even if they don’t sell their shares.

The GROWTH Act would align the tax code so that capital gains are only taxed when individual investors sell their shares of either kind of investment fund. With this approach, funds would continue to pass through interest and dividend income, but an individual investor’s capital gains would continue to accrue until that investor exited their position.

This strategy would improve economic efficiency by allowing investor outcomes to reflect underlying risk and return, rather than the actions of other shareholders. Many European countries already use versions of this approach. One possible disadvantage of this approach, she notes, is that it will shift the timing of tax revenues. While total tax revenues over the lifetime of the investment could be higher due to higher compound returns inside the fund, this revenue would generally not be collected until the individual investor sells their shares. Furthermore, this approach has the potential to significantly reduce government tax revenues, because any profits would be exempted from capital gains taxes if the funds are held until the investor dies.

But overall, Patel says, this option could offer a clearer, more straightforward framework that advances equity, efficiency, and simplicity in the taxation of mutual funds and ETFs.

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Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Publication Date

21-May-2026

 

Innovative local collaboration can unlock stronger environmental protection in England, study shows

University of Exeter

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The use of digital tools and better coordination between different organisations can help the UK significantly optimise its first line of defence against ecological degradation, new research shows.

Unified and local efforts can support a thriving environment and improve community well-being, University of Exeter experts have found.

They hope their blueprint – which proposes tech-driven, community-led action – can rescue local environmental enforcement from funding cuts and jurisdictional confusion.

The study says England’s existing local environmental compliance regimes have the potential to pioneer a powerful, community-led model for nature conservation. By overcoming systemic funding and jurisdictional challenges, regional authorities can successfully transition from reactive enforcement to a proactive culture of environmental stewardship.

Researchers from the Exeter Centre for Environmental Law, at the University of Exeter, and the Earth Law Center focused on Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to analyse the role of eight public authorities. They found a profound and baseline commitment to environmental protection.

The positive impact of this research is already visible on the ground. Cornwall Council and the Local Nature Partnership have successfully launched a joint public awareness initiative named "Help Protect Our Wildlife and Environment".

The study, published in the Environmental Law Review, outlines an inspiring plan for regional environmental governance. While historic budget constraints and fragmented agency boundaries have occasionally duplicated efforts or created skills gaps, the researchers view these challenges as an opportunity for modernisation and systemic renewal. 

Their toolkit encourages the dismantling of traditional regulatory barriers and the fostering of deep collaboration between regulators, businesses, and the public. This includes the revitalisation of Centralised Local Nature Partnership websites to serve as transparent, user-friendly hubs. By offering accessible regulatory databases and interactive jurisdictional maps, these platforms can transform sometimes confusing legal frameworks into clear, empowering guidance for local landowners and small businesses.

The study also advocates for the launch of Unified Reporting Portals, which would allow geotagging and photo uploads, alongside secure anonymous reporting options, to encourage civic participation by helping citizens to become partners in environmental monitoring.

Dr Tiago de Melo Cartaxo, from the University of Exeter Centre for Environmental Law, said: “The environmental challenges we face are complex, but they also offer a catalyst for local innovation. Environmental regulations truly come alive and make an impact when local communities are empowered to adhere to and shape them. By building robust data-driven adaptive frameworks, bridging institutional divides through joint case reviews, and properly investing in workforce development, we can create resilient ecosystems that thrive for generations. The proactive work commissioned by local authorities in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly shows an estimable commitment to progressive governance, providing a blueprint that can be successfully mirrored right across the UK.”

Co-author Thomas Baycock, also from the University of Exeter, said: “While organisations are incredibly willing and open to sharing data, modern enforcement is often obscured by technological restrictions, uneven data standards, and severe capacity limits. Transitioning to centralised digital repositories and integrating smart sensor technologies will not only alleviate the administrative burden on overstretched staff but will also promote the deep public trust required for genuine collective action.”

The study encourages organisations to embrace a variety of methods of fundraising – such as corporate partnerships, revolving funds from reinvested penalties, and dedicated government grants – to build a highly skilled, fairly compensated, and deeply motivated environmental workforce.

 

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Journal

Environmental Law Review

DOI

10.1177/14614529261447778 

Method of Research

Case study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Testing the effectiveness of England's local environmental compliance regimes: The case of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly

Article Publication Date

29-May-2026

 

Transition to electric vehicles in Brazil and Mexico driven by domestic politics and global pressures, study shows

University of Exeter

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Transition to electric vehicles in Brazil and Mexico has been driven by domestic politics and global pressures, a new study says.

Decisions have been made in both countries shaped by factors beyond emissions, costs or efficiency.

In Brazil, this has been the size of the domestic market for EVs and the domestic coalition around bio-ethanol. In Mexico, the change has been more volatile because of a greater reliance on foreign technology and the erosion of reliable access to US markets.

The research, by Renato H. de Gaspi from Johns Hopkins University and Pedro Perfeito da Silva, from the University of Exeter, says Brazil’s EV growth has been driven by commodities, putting the domestically owned primary sector in a privileged position. Domestic demand has provided the manufacturing industry with a large internal market, which also attracts the interest of foreign investors.

The Brazilian government has greater bargaining power with multinational automakers—who dominate production in both countries—than their Mexican counterparts.

In Mexico, by contrast, light vehicle production is overwhelmingly export‐oriented, with 87 per cent destined for foreign markets, constraining policy leverage.

Brazil’s greater flexibility toward foreign investors, combined with the influence of domestic business groups, has favoured decarbonization choices aligned with domestic market needs, such as the prioritization of biofuel‐compatible hybrid vehicles.

Dr Perfeito da Silva said: “Despite facing similar global pressures and structural constraints, the two countries have adopted distinct technological strategies even under administrations led by similar left‐wing parties. In Brazil, this reflects the alignment between long‐standing sectoral capabilities, rural‐urban political coalitions, and the structure of domestic demand. Mexico has followed a technological route shaped by the diffusion of global innovations while navigating a moment of neoprotectionism and mounting uncertainty around what was once a stable, predictable, albeit dependent export‐led model.

“Brazil has prioritized a hybrid‐ethanol strategy grounded in its longstanding ethanol infrastructure and flex‐fuel vehicle fleet. This strategy is a locally adapted response that reflects national constraints, such as the lack of public charging infrastructure.”

“Mexico, in contrast, has pursued a strategy shaped by outside forces. The country’s long‐standing export‐led growth model has been structured around integration with US and Canadian markets. Mexico moved rapidly to expand its capacity in BEV assembly and battery production. While recent governments have sought to increase local content and reduce technological dependency, their ability to do so remains constrained by the logic of dependent integration.”

The vulnerabilities of this strategy have become especially visible. Rising protectionist pressures, such as the threat of tariffs and the phase‐out of key provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, have introduced a new layer of uncertainty into what was once a predictable and stable external environment. Policymakers have been forced to consider a more proactive role in industrial policymaking without having built the institutional or political foundations for it.

 

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Journal

Politics and Governance

DOI

10.17645/pag.11240 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

The Politics of Technological Choice in the EV Transition: Comparing Brazil and Mexico

Fast deliveries worsen conditions for e-commerce warehouse workers

Cornell University

 

ITHACA, N.Y. – Holding off on that late-night online order of a book, blender or blue jeans could ease the strain on a warehouse worker.

Consumers’ around-the-clock, often impulsive demand for cheap, rapidly delivered products creates harsher working conditions in e-commerce fulfillment centers than in traditional warehouses, according to Cornell University-led research that provides the first comprehensive assessment of e-commerce work in the U.S.

Between Amazon and Walmart, the nation’s two largest warehouse employers, surveys found jobs at Amazon fulfillment centers to be significantly worse – more intense and dangerous – likely driven by the e-commerce market leader’s emphasis on fast delivery.

The findings are cause for concern if Amazon’s practices become the norm, the researchers said – but also show alternative approaches are viable.

“E-commerce heightens the frenzy among retailers to satisfy customers with convenience, speed and cheap prices, offerings that all erode job quality for workers behind the scenes,” said Alexander Kowalski, assistant professor of human resource studies. “This is a problematic trend for a large and growing share of the labor market – but it doesn’t have to be this way.”

Kowalski is the first author of “At the Mercy of the Market: E-Commerce and Warehouse Work in the United States,” published in the ILR Review.

Research about the workers who enable e-commerce has highlighted reasons such jobs may be more challenging: They involve more varied inventory, more intensive labor, less predictable demand and more frequent returns. In response, workers including material movers, pickers, packers and clerks earn low wages and may face unpredictable schedules, monotonous tasks, limited opportunities for breaks, digital surveillance and discipline imposed by algorithms.

The team surveyed about 400 hourly employees representative of the U.S. population of warehouse workers. Some supported e-commerce fulfillment centers primarily reacting to consumer orders, called business-to-consumer (B2C) warehouses; others worked in distribution and sorting centers serving brick-and-mortar stores or manufacturers, called business-to-business (B2B) warehouses.

The results confirmed a “B2C Effect”: Warehouse jobs were challenging on average, but worse at B2C – largely e-commerce – sites. Those workers experienced more pressure to move quickly and avoid taking breaks, greater exposure to unsafe situations and significantly worse overall well-being – a measure of anxiety, burnout and stress – but were not paid more.

“The warehouse segment dedicated to e-commerce offers lower-quality jobs across the board,” Kowalski said. “The results suggest that more time-sensitive pressures related to speedy delivery make for especially low-quality jobs in e-commerce.”

To investigate if those issues were consistent across retailers, the researchers next surveyed warehouse employees at Amazon (1,450 respondents) and Walmart (450 respondents), which respectively accounted for 38% and 6% of U.S. online shopping in 2023.

The results showed Amazon’s fulfillment centers housed the least desirable warehousing jobs. Respondents working in those facilities were more likely to report higher intensity, less opportunity, lower wages, greater unfairness and more challenges concerning safety, well-being and injuries. Walmart’s baseline job was not high-quality but varied little by warehouse type, whereas Amazon’s e-commerce jobs – the majority of its warehouse workforce – were significantly worse than comparable Walmart jobs, the researchers said. The findings suggest Walmart’s emphasis on low prices imposes less burden on e-commerce warehouse workers than Amazon’s focus on delivery speed.

“E-commerce creates downward pressure on work conditions,” Kowalski said, “and Amazon dials it up even more.”

 

The contrast between e-commerce’s biggest players, however, implies that Amazon’s lower job quality is not inevitable, but flows from its strategic priorities. Improving job quality will require worker movements, regulatory policies, consumer awareness and businesses seeing value in doing things differently, the researchers said.

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

Cornell University has dedicated television and audio studios available for media interviews.

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Journal

ILR Review

DOI

10.1177/00197939261444716 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Article Title

At the Mercy of the Market? E-Commerce, Warehouse Work, and Job Quality in the United States

Article Publication Date

29-May-2026