Arctic Yearbook 2014
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Council of Greenland (2013) and The Committee for Greenlandic Mineral Resources to the
Benefit of Society (2014)] – including the actual activities and known future plans of the major
industrial stakeholders. Rather, the overly optimistic view substantiate skepticism:
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At the time of writing there are no active mines in Greenland. The last mine in
operation, the Nalunaq goldmine near Nanortalik in South Greenland, was shut down
October 31, 2013 and the remaining equipment and waste was carried away in August
2014 (Nyvold, 2014). Two projects, an iron ore project (London Mining’s Isukasia
project) in the Nuuk Fiord and a gemstone project (True North Gem’s ruby project) at
Qeqertarsuatsiat south of Nuuk, have exploitation licenses and both projects are in the
process of raising capital. The iron ore project is a so-called ‘large scale project’ with
estimated total construction costs of DKK 13 billion. The expectations for the impacts
on employment and the Greenlandic economy have been significant but – supposedly
not least because of decreasing world market prices – London Mining has not been
successful in raising capital.
Apart from seismic surveys in North East Greenland no oil exploration has been carried
out in Greenland since 2010 and 2011. Cairn Energy, the most active company so far,
has declared a break in their exploration activities and has closed their Greenland office
in Nuuk; StatOil is focusing their activities north of Norway and ExxonMobil did not
give a bid for the northeastern coast of Greenland offshore licenses and no exploration
activities are announced. The strikes and exploitation of shale gas in USA and potential
finds in Europe definitely contributed to the decreasing interest in more costly and
environmentally risky exploration activities in Arctic – including Greenlandic – waters.
Even if mining activities have not yet significantly impacted the Greenlandic society, the public
debate has raised awareness on a variety of aspects of mineral extraction and has fueled a
number of civil society activities and NGO initiatives. An overall driver uniting most of the
political landscape has been the vision of being able to become economically self-sufficient and
obtain political independency from Denmark. Furthermore a number of themes have been part
of the mineral resource discourse including aspects of:
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Poppel
Sustainable development: including the social, economic, environmental and cultural
approaches;
Democracy: for instance public participation and informed consent, transparency in the
administrative procedures as well as the planning processes of the companies;
Economic development: how much and under which legislative conditions and tax
regimes will Greenland and its people benefit from the activities of extractive industries –
and is there a risk that Greenland might be caught in the ‘resource curse’?;
Labour market concerns: including necessary skills, education, mobility and the potential
use of immigrant labour and risk of ‘social dumping’;
Environmental protection of a pristine and vulnerable nature and living resources;
Uranium mining: the political parties had for several years agreed upon a zero-tolerance
on uranium mining – including mining activities were uranium was a by-product. The
ban on uranium mining was lifted in the Fall 2013 with a one-vote-majority in
Inatsisartut, the Greenland Parliament;