The chairman of the board of the Sámi Parliament has had a meeting with the government during the EU summit in Kiruna. He points to one issue as particularly important.
– One thousand billion kroner must be invested in the two northernmost counties when it comes to the green transition. This suggests that it will mean that the lands are affected. We are afraid that reindeer husbandry will be negatively affected, and we must be involved in these processes.
Do you have any other line, suggestions, we have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions?
– In the political discussion, there are very positive terms about that development and there we are a bit of an opposite pole and it is important that we exist and can lift the consequences. We don’t know today what the long-term consequences will be, says Håkan Jonsson, Chairman of the Board of the Sami Parliament (JoF).
“Major investments in mines and wind power”
In front of top European politicians and when the eyes of the world were on Kiruna, the state mining company LKAB presented that they had located the world’s largest find of rare earth metals. What the EU needs to cope with a transition to fossil-free, to electric motors and also phosphorus to fertiliser.
– There are big investments in mines and wind power. And forestry at that. There is much that affects the reindeer industry today. It is important to participate and show that we do not follow everything that is highlighted by the large state-owned companies, says Matti Blind Berg, chairman of SSR.
Regarding the Per Geijer ore and the earth metals in Kiruna, LKAB believes that they will be able to solve it together with Gabna Samiby.
– It is important that we have a functioning reindeer husbandry in Kiruna. It is in our interest to help Gabna Sami village. It may not be easy, but we believe it will work, says LKAB’s press manager Anders Lindberg.
Javascript must be enabled to play video
LKAB is looking at a mining technique that does not take up all the land, are you sure it will be so disastrous?
– We have understood that LKAB was interested in this technology, which involves filling again. That technique is never used. They have not been able to present any research, no proven experience, says Karin Kvarfordt Niia, board member of Gabna Samiby.
The minister: “Dialogue must solve the problems”
The issue of indigenous rights in connection with the transition towards fewer emissions of greenhouse gases has been on the news a lot recently. In the new global agreement on biological diversity, it is written that the transition must not violate indigenous rights.
The political solution to these conflicts is to talk, says Minister of Economic Affairs Ebba Busch (KD).
– I really believe in dialogue. While we see that it is in everyone’s interest that we manage to take care of the nature we have and the only planet we have been given. We have found ways to solve difficult conflicts and contradictions before and I hope and believe that we will be able to do it here as well in the future, says Ebba Busch (KD) to SVT Sápmi.
