“There is so much intrusion from all sides and corners,” a Sami reindeer herder tells me, reacting to a government decision to grant a mining permit in Gállok in the Sápmi region in Sweden’s far north.
Sápmi is the communal land of the Indigenous Sami people. Their land ranges through northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.
This particular reindeer herding community in Sápmi has already been affected by expansion of huge levels of industry related to forestry and hydropower. And now there’s a planned iron ore project. A new mine and its associated infrastructure will place additional pressures on grazing lands and migratory routes.
