I am writing to you directly because what I am proposing affects your mission, your credibility, and your obligation to the people and ecosystems you have spent decades defending — here in Minnesota, where we have the opportunity to change the face of responsible resource development for the entire country. This conversation belongs at the leadership level, not in a litigation file.

I am Brad Kohler. I am running for Governor of Minnesota as an Independent Conservative in 2026. I am not writing to ask for your endorsement, and I am not writing to argue with your position on mining. I am writing to extend an unconditional invitation to help shape what responsible development looks like — on behalf of the Minnesotans who have been left behind for decades and the ecosystems they call home.

I want you in the room. Not because you agree with me. Because you don't.

The Duluth Complex holds ninety-five percent of U.S. nickel reserves, eighty-eight percent of cobalt, and seventy-five percent of platinum group metals. Those minerals are coming out of the ground somewhere. Right now they come out of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where children dig cobalt by hand in unregulated mines under conditions that every organization on this letter's recipient list has documented and condemned. You are probably reading this from a handheld device that runs on the very material we both want to stop acquiring that way. The conservation movement's success in blocking Minnesota development has not protected the environment. It has moved the damage to a place with no environmental protections at all.

I am asking you to consider a different outcome. Not to abandon your principles. To apply them where they can actually make a difference.

The Governor's Resource Stewardship Council, established by executive order on Day One of a Kohler administration, is the mechanism. It is not an advisory panel that can be ignored. Its meetings are public. Its minutes are public. Its concerns are on the record before any permit is signed. Your organization holds a seat on that council — unconditionally, regardless of your position on development. If you believe the Duluth Complex should never be touched, that position goes into the record. If you believe it can be done responsibly with the right conditions, those conditions go into the record. Either way, the development does not happen without your documented input being part of the file.

Here is what I am specifically asking for — and what I am specifically committing to in return.

And here is what I commit to you in return.

The Land of 10,000 Lakes is not just a license plate. It is a habitat. It is what makes Minnesota worth fighting for. The families on the Iron Range who have watched their children leave for thirty years are not asking us to choose between their livelihoods and their lakes. They are asking us to stop pretending that choice is the only one available.

It is not. But the alternative only exists if the people who know how to protect what matters are part of building it.

Your response — whatever it is — will be published on the Agenda Minnesota conservation outreach tracker within thirty days. A commitment to participate is published as a commitment. A declination is published as a declination. A non-response is published as a non-response. The table is being built in public. Your organization is on it either way. I am giving you the chance to define your own position rather than have it defined by your absence.

I welcome a direct conversation with your leadership at your convenience. The full platform, all fifty primary sources, and the Governor's Resource Stewardship Council framework are available at the address below.

This is the moment. The standard gets written now, or it does not get written at all. I am asking you to help write it.