The Lake Superior region is in the "first stage of the colonialization process" by multinational corporations, this study warns. Its "storehouse of untapped mineral wealth" may make it a "a new domestic mining district," providing the corporate giants with "raw materials for corporate growth and diversification and a dumping ground for the toxic and radioactive wastes left behind from the mining process."

In the past 10 years, more than 40 mining companies, including such giants as Exxon, Kerr-McGee, Inco, Amoco, Phelps-Dodge, U.S. Steel, Amax, Homestake Mining and SOHIO, have leased over 900,000 acres in the region - mostly from private citizens - as they jockey for position in the race to mine the proven reserves of copper, nickel, zinc and vanadium, and probable bodies of uranium and thorium.

Land Grab aims to redress the imbalance of knowledge and political clout between these giant companies and the citizens, Indian tribes and state and local governments which allows the companies "to take advantage of citizens in the negotiation of lease agreements, mineral royalties, taxes, and mining regulations" by providing information about the companies and the "land grab" underway.

The "most effective opposition" to mining, the study notes, is "at the earliest stage of the resource colonization process" when mineral leases are negotiated. But community opposition can be effective later as well as since there is such a long lead time before a mine goes into production. As of June 1982, over 50 townships and 3 Indian tribes in Wisconsin had passed moratorium resolutions against exploration and mining on their lands. But the companies have already successfully lobbied the state government to change the mineral tax law.