BOISE, Idaho — The Nez Perce Tribe filed a federal lawsuit on Friday challenging the U.S. Forest Service's approval of the Stibnite Gold Project .

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, alleges the Forest Service violated the tribe's treaty rights and broke federal environmental laws when it approved the project in early 2025.

Boise-based Perpetua Resources plans to build three open-pit mines to extract gold, silver and antimony from the historic Stibnite mining district in central Idaho, near McCall. The mining operation would sit on ancestral homelands of the Nez Perce people.

The tribe claims the project threatens water quality and endangered species, including Chinook salmon, steelhead and bull trout. If those resources become unavailable, tribal members say their 1855 treaty

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