Mining is booming – Reindeer breeding in danger - 400 reindeer drowned in Sweden

Sweden’s Sami native people are suffering increasingly under the consequences of the climate change. The Society for Threatened Peoples STP (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker GfbV) in Göttingen reported on Thursday that mining is going through a boom in the traditional homelands of the Sami in the north-west of Sweden as a result of the rising temperatures. British and Australian mining companies have been drilling since January 2009 at 21 new sites for iron ore, gold, copper and uranium without any consideration for the traditional land-rights and in spite of the protests of the indigenous people. At most of these sites new open-cast mining is to take place. This will produce such grave destruction of the environment that the means of life of the Sami will in huge areas be destroyed. In several cases the Sami villages have lodged complaints with the authorities against the projects.

Europe’s largest gold reserves are thought be in north Sweden. There are also larges reserves of iron ore, copper, silver and zinc. Just recently nickel deposits worth 142 million US dollars were found. The extension of the railway lines to Norway are now being planned to transport the ores more quickly to the ports for shipping abroad.

In addition to the threat from the planned open-cast mining serious consequences for the traditional reindeer breeding of the Sami have also become evident as the first consequences of the climate change. At the end of last week 400 reindeer crossing a frozen river near the town of Jokkmokk broke through the thin ice and were drowned. The people living in the Sami village of Sirges never had in the past any problems on their way to the winter pastures with the ice being too thin. But it is clear that as a result of the climate change the water now freezes more slowly and later in the year.

The reindeer herds are even threatened by the rising temperatures, warned the STP. Traditionally the reindeer fed off the lichen from the trees, which they used to find under the snow. If the snow thaws at a temperature of zero and then freezes again with a hard cover of ice the animals can no longer be reach the lichen. Many reindeer perish because they can no longer find any sustenance, so the Sami are forced to feed their animals themselves in winter. However this is a price which the native peoples cannot afford in the long run. Approximately 3,000 of the 20,000 Sami in north Sweden live today from the breeding of reindeer.