The source of those assets: primarily timber, mining, and other natural resource operations.

FORBES: U.S. Backed Declaration Could Have a Big Impact in Indian Country

Native claims on timber and mining land have held back investment.

ECONOMIST: The province��s New Democrats head for extinction

They claim the Pombo bill is catering to timber interests, mining interests, power companies and big agribusiness.

CNN: Is Endangered Species Act in danger? - Sept. 26, 1995

Timber felling and mining are a much greater risk to the frogs he has studied in Peru, he says.

BBC: Should the location of newly discovered species be hidden?

Much of that was from the mining, timber, commodities and petroleum industries.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia

The Yekaterinburg native graduated from a mining institute and went on to found family timber and furniture business in 1991.

FORBES: Nikolai Maximov & family

But the Japanese pulled out of the Taiyo fish cannery at Noro, timber exports were hit by the Asian slump, Ross Mining closed its Gold Ridge mine and Guadalcanal's palm-oil plantations have been abandoned.

ECONOMIST: The Solomon Islands: The Pacific's first failed state? | The

Mr. Friedland, who spent much of the 1970s traveling in India, where he studied Sanskrit, Hindu culture and Buddhism, once said he became interested in mining after stumbling upon an abandoned gold mine on property he was developing for a timber venture with Mr. Jobs, whom he met at Reed College in Portland, Ore.

WSJ: A Battle for Mongolia's Copper Lode