Monday, September 07, 2009

Entering Vindelkroken

Mining for minerals and ore in a natural reserve. Taste the words and reflect upon that notion for a short while. This is what mining company Blackstone Ventures wants and has acquired prospecting rights to, in the northernmost parts of Sweden. They will soon start to drill for minerals near the Sapmi summer village Vindelkroken.

If you wish: watch this short video created by independent documentary creator Stéphane Lombard.

The legalities are complicated and I have read about the company using juricial loopholes to be able to prospect the area, but no matter the legal sides and turnabouts, I really hope that they will not be able to continue this project.


Syterskalet - Used here under a Creative Commons license, originally from Wikipedia.

I am not alone in this notion. Communities of people with Sapmi background and culture, being an indigenous culture which inhabits the northern part of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia, are largely against mining in their traditional area of living.

Parts of the Sampi's historical way of making a living for themselves has been trough herding reindeer's. There are claims being made that mining would disrupt the animals natural habitat and also change what has this far been left untouched.

I am writing this because I think it's shady at best to start industrial projects in natural reserves, there is something I believe that many people would recognize as wrong on a very fundamental level.

I also believe that values which includes a support of biological diversity and the preservation of the beauty of the natural habitat needs to be strengthened, so that there is a balance between industrialization and biological sustainability.

4 comments:

Sarah Sullivan said...

Good morning hon,
You may know my hubby is a mineralogist..for a reason. He goes for the small finds and digs in small spaces. He has seen the damage and environmental disaster that large scale mining brings. We live in a mining area. If you Google "Silver Valley, Idaho" you will see what I mean. We live outside of the old and current mining area - but the lake we live by has heavy lead and arsnic contents in some parts of the lake. It is not a good thing!! I am with you here!! Hopefully this will be stalled somehow!!
Hope you are well!! Hugs, Sarah

Tammie Lee said...

You bring up very good points. I feel that we would do good to honor the pristine places. To honor and keep the natural reserves. We have disturbed so much of the beauty of our world and I wish we would value the natural places as they are. Thank you for bringing this to light.

Suecae Sounds said...

I did not know that Sarah. Thanks for contributing. I also googled just like you suggested, the first image from the google search engine was a small image from what I imagine is the mining area. I agree, it is not a good thing. Thanks for your well wishes.

Tammie, I also would like to mention that I am in total agreement with you on the idea of honoring nature. We are connected and dependent on it, even though we might think otherwise.

Alicia @ boylerpf said...

I think I have the blogger gods at bay ;)

What a shame it would be to large scale mine a beautiful place such as this. It is one thing to live off the earth and another to pillage such beauty. I hope the loopholes get closed in favor of the land..