JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The state’s natural resources department will have to justify its rationale for how it designated land use in the Bristol Bay region nearly a decade ago, a process that could have ramifications for the proposed Pebble Mine.

A court settlement has been reached in a case brought by tribes, a conservation group and fishermen over a 2005 land use plan. A plaintiffs’ attorney says the plan, drafted as interest in the gold and copper prospect was heating up, eliminated 93 percent of prior habitat classifications in the region, with a tilt toward mining.