Indigenous people's protests in Northern Norway due to a copper mine

The Sami people, an indigenous group in Europe, are deeply concerned due to the 'Nussir' copper mine under construction in the Repparfjord area of Northern Norway. This community, which claims heritage to a land called 'Sapmi' spanning Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, has lived for centuries with reindeer herding and fishing as their main livelihoods.

However, Nils Mikkelsen Utsi, leader of the Fiettar reindeer herding district, states that due to the new copper mining project, the traditional calving grounds of the reindeer and their traditional way of life will be severely threatened.

This, the largest copper deposit discovered in the country to date, is to be established as an underground mine beneath a reindeer calving ground. A major reason for the strong opposition from environmental activists against this project is the permission granted to discharge approximately 30 million tons of mine waste into the fjord. This marine area is a primary breeding ground for Atlantic salmon and a habitat for other fish species such as cod and haddock. Norway has now joined the limited number of countries in the world that grant legal permission to discharge mine waste into the ocean.

Many young environmental activists belonging to organizations like 'Nature and Youth' are currently protesting against mining activities and waste disposal, despite the severe cold. Such conflicts are growing across Europe as European governments have entered a race to obtain the metals needed for the production of renewable energy technologies like batteries and wind turbines. The Critical Raw Minerals Act, a 2024 EU law, also encourages projects like Nussir, and the goal of building environmentally friendly technologies is widely used as a justification for mining, points out Lindsay Wuisan of 'Friends of the Earth Europe'. However, she further states that there is no guarantee that these minerals are actually used for environmentally friendly purposes.

However, Øystein Rushfeldt, managing director of Nussir, states that they have decided to extract copper through a completely underground operation to minimize disturbance to the reindeer. Furthermore, the company is offering facilities such as mobile slaughterhouses for reindeer herders, and he emphasizes that about 250 jobs have already been created through the mine. Meanwhile, Harald Sørby, an official at the Norwegian Environment Agency, states that although discharging mine waste into the ocean is controversial, piling it up on land could cause even greater harm to the reindeer's lives. The agency also believes that the deep water mass in the fjord will safely contain these wastes.