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Abstract
On 24 October 2013, Greenland’s parliament voted by a narrow margin to repeal the country’s zero-tolerance policy on the mining of uranium and other radioactive materials. Mining activities and energy and industrial development plans have provoked political and social debates within Greenland about the nature of such development, the absence of appropriate public participation, consultation, decision-making and regulatory processes, concerns about the impacts of extractive industries on hunting and fishing activities and the shortcomings of social and environmental impact assessments. At the same time, contested perceptions and understandings of the environment become apparent with concerns expressed by local people and grassroots organisations about threats to community viability, to wildlife and to biodiversity. This article draws on ethnographic work to explore these issues with reference to the current debate in Greenland about mining and specifically about uranium as a mining objective or by-product of mineral extraction. With the opening in September 2013 of the autumn session of Inatsisartut, the Greenlandic parliament, the debate over ending the uranium zero-tolerance policy in the Danish Realm also focused greater international attention on Greenland’s ambitions for extractive industries. As such, mineral extraction is no longer a domestic issue of how to develop Greenland’s economy, but is increasingly framed as a matter of international security and global environmental concern.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on research carried as part of the ‘Climate and Society’ programme (GCRC Project 6400), funded by the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, and which connects the University of Greenland and Greenland Climate Research Centre with the University of Alberta. It has benefitted from discussion with members of the Department of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University in October 2013, as well as from fellow participants in the workshop on ‘Extractive Industries in the Arctic’ held at Memorial University of Newfoundland on 4–5 October 2013.
Notes
1 “London Mining får udnyttelsestilladelse i dag [London Mining gets its exploitation licence today],” Sermitsiaq/AG, http://sermitsiaq.ag/london-mining-faar-udnyttelsestilladelse-i-dag (accessed October 24, 2013). Author’s translation.
2 “Nultolerancen for uran er ophævet [Zero tolerance towards uranium is lifted],” Sermitsiaq/AG, http://sermitsiaq.ag/nultolerancen-uran-ophaevet (accessed October 24, 2013).
3 Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum, Mineral Strategy.
4 Nuttall, “Imagining and Governing the Greenlandic Resource Frontier”; Nuttall, “The Isukasia Iron Ore Mine controversy,”
5 Petersen, “The Arctic as a New Arena for Danish Foreign Policy.”
6 Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, Kingdom of Denmark Strategy for the Arctic.
7 Bogvad, “Nepheline Syenite and Iron Ore Deposits in Greenland”; Bøggild, “Mining in Greenland.”
8 Cryolite is a rare non-metal mineral and the deposit at Ivittuut is the largest that has been mined anywhere in the world. Chemically, it comprises sodium, aluminium and fluorine and when cryolite mining began it was sent to Denmark and used in the production of soda and enamel. From the late 1880s, it began to be used internationally in the production of aluminium and was a critically important strategic mineral during World War II, especially for its use in the aircraft industry. See Berry, “Cryolite, the Canadian aluminium industry and the American occupation of Greenland during the Second World War”; Kragh, “From Curiousity to Industry”; Henriksen, Geological History of Greenland; Tayler, “On the Cryolite of Evigtok, Greenland.”
9 e.g. Rink, “The Recent Danish Explorations in Greenland”; Rink, Danish Greenland, p. 78.
10 Nuttall, “The Isukasia Iron Ore Mine controversy”; Pilegaard, Preliminary Environmental Impact Statement for the Kvanefjeld Uranium Mine.
11 Gaultier, Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the East Greenland Rift Basins Province.
12 USACOR, The Future of the Arctic.
14 “London Mining får udnyttelsestilladelse i dag,” Sermitsiaq, http://sermitsiaq.ag/london-mining-faar-udnyttelsestilladelse-i-dag (accessed October 24, 2013). Author’s translation.
15 The map can be viewed on the BMP’s website at http://licence-map.bmp.gl/
16 Bjørst, Arktiske diskurser og klimaforandringer i Grønland.
17 Elden, “Secure the Volume.”
18 Sinding, “At the Crossroads.”
19 Nuttall, “Imagining and Governing the Greenlandic Resource Frontier.”
20 Mills, “Greenland Offers Exploration Homerun Potential,” http://www.mining.com/web/greenland-offers-exploration-homerun-potential/ (accessed September 15, 2013).
21 Nuttall, “Imagining and Governing the Greenlandic Resource Frontier.”
22 Nuttall, “Living in a World of Movement”.
23 Kuletz, The Tainted Desert, p. 7.
24 Karlsson, Unruly Hills, p. 21.
25 Tsing, Friction.
26 Nuttall, “The Isukasia Iron Ore Mine Controversy”; Nuttall, “Subsurface Politics.”
27 Karlsson, Unruly Hills, p. 269.
28 e.g. High, “Wealth and Envy in the Mongolian Gold Mines”; Filer, “The Dialectics of Negation and Negotiation in the Anthropology of Mineral Resource Development in Papua New Guinea”; Kirsch, “Indigenous Movements and the Risks of Counterglobalization.”
29 Escobar, Territories of Difference, p. 121.
30 Bridge, “Resource Triumphalism.”
31 Myrup, “Industrialising Greenland.”
32 Tsing, Friction; Nuttall, “Subsurface Politics.”
33 Nuttall, “The Isukasia Iron Mine Controversy.”
34 Bjørn Aaen, Demokratisk legitimitet i høringsprocesser i forbindelse med storskala-projekter i Grønland.
35 For example, the day the law was passed, Danish broadcaster DR published the following article on its website “Grønland vedtger lov: nu kommer kineserne” (“Greenland adopts law: now come the Chinese”).
http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2012/12/07/195138.htm (accessed August 26, 2013), while the Greenlandic newspapers ran a similar story: “Nu kommer kineserne [Now come the Chinese]” http://sermitsiaq.ag/kommer-kineserne (accessed August 26, 2013).
36 Nielsen, “Portræt af et fjeld [Portrait of a mountain].”
37 Pilegaard, Preliminary Environmental Impact Statement for the Kvanefjeld Uranium Mine; Kalvig, Preliminary Mining Assessment of the Uranium Resource at Kvanefjeld; Nielsen, “Portræt af et fjeld.”
38 See http://www.ggg.gl/.
39 Kuletz, The Tainted Desert, p. 7.
41 Myrup, “Industrialising Greenland.”
42 Kirsch, “Sustainable Mining.”
43 Cheshire, “A Corporate Responsibility?”
44 Myrup et al., “Grønland har ophævet sit uranforbrud på usagligt,” p. 18. Author’s translation.
45 e.g. “Danmark skal sikre Grønlands uran” (“Denmark must ensure Greenland’s uranium”) Sermitsiaq-AG, http://sermitsiaq.ag/danmark-sikre-groenlands-uran (accessed October 25, 2013).
46 Bridge, “Material Worlds.”
47 Harvey, The New Imperialism.
48 Greenland Parliament Act No. 7 of December 7, 2009, on mineral resources and mineral resource activities (the Mineral Resources Act), Part 1, General Rule 1(2). Available at http://www.goia.gl/~/media/Files/G/GOIA/documents/content-pdf/mineralresourcesact.pdf.
49 e.g. Karlsson, Unruly Hills.