Regular operation of the 572 km long railroad to its terminal point – the Karskaya station – was launched in February 15. The line connects major regional installations like the Bovanenkovo gas field with national key infrastructure.

The Obskaya-Bovanenkovo railway line will enable Gazprom to easily ship huge quantities of goods and construction materials to its field development sites in Yamal.

“The opening of this railway will facilitate all-year-round, quick, cost efficient and not-weather-dependent transport of goods and personnel to the fields in Yamal under the harsh Arctic conditions, a press release from Gazprom reads.

Unline other Russian railway lines, the Obskaya-Bovanenkovo line is owned by Gazprom. As previously reported, the Russian Railways have been invited to take over the line, but has shown little interest.

In addition to railway and field development in Yamal, Gazprom is also investing in the laying of the Bovanenkovo-Ukhta gas pipeline.

Source: Gazprom

Wind turbine at Markbygden near Piteå. Photo: Tom Sullivan / SR International

One of the largest wind farms in the world is being built in northern Sweden but not everyone is pleased about it. The turbines cut across an area used by Sweden’s indigenous Sámi reindeer herders.

An hour’s drive inland from the town of Piteå, a dozen wind turbines tower over the surrounding forest. In the next few years 1,101 turbines will be erected here at a cost of $8.2 billion.

“This plateau has really good wind conditions – that’s the main reason it’s being built here,” said Jonas Lundmark from the local council.

“Also 95 percent of the land is owned by two forestry companies and there has been a steady decline in the population over the last 50 years. People living here are very keen to get more business into the area.”

By 2020, the wind farm is expected to provide about half of the national target for new wind energy – about 12 terawatt hours – that’s roughly the equivalent of two Swedish nuclear reactors, according to the company building the wind farm.

Wind power is a high priority for the Swedish government, and the local power to veto planning applications for wind farms has been removed to pave the way for more of them.

Stefan Lundmark, from the Swedish ministry of enterprise and energy says that the trend across the Nordic countries is to build in northern, more sparsely populated areas.

Sámi reindeer herders losing grazing land

“I think that the wind farms will be bigger and bigger and most of them will be in northern Sweden. In the south it’s more densely populated and there are more competing interests,” he said.

Leaving the wind farm traffic, the only traffic I met on the newly paved road was a herd of reindeer that shot out in front of the car, forcing me to stop. With the low winter sun I almost failed to see them until it was too late.

The new road winds through the Sámi reindeer herding lands, and the local herders say it will limit their movements and endanger their animals. They are locked in a dispute over compensation with the company building the wind farm – they say they were never properly consulted before the building got underway.

Ingrid Inga, president of the Sámi Parliament, says this is just the latest chapter in a longstanding struggle between Sámi reindeer herders and industrial interests.

“We’re not against wind power – but we are against big wind farms like Markbydgen because they affect the reindeer business – the local Sámi herders will lose about a quarter of their winter grazing land. That’s really reprehensible from our point of view,” she said.

Inger says that Sámi herding communities should be consulted before giant wind farms are built, which she says did not happen in Markbygden.

She explains that reindeer herders need to move their herds between seasonal grazing lands – often across long distances – during the year. But increasing demands on the land from other economic interests is making that more and more difficult, and is leading to the closure of traditional Sámi businesses.

National interest versus Sámi rights

“The government can take over land earmarked for reindeer grazing – if it’s in the national interest. You have mining, hydro power, forestry and now wind power – each of them competing for land used by Sámi herders – and it all adds up.

Svevind, the company building the windfarm say that they have consulted the Sámi and that they are willing to pay appropriate compensation.

But Sámi grievances run deep – there is a long history in the region of what is perceived as land-grabbing by government and industrial interest, explained Patrick Lantto, an historian at the Centre for Sámi Research in Umeå.

Although the Sámi are protected by a law which gives them the right to grazing lands across vast stretched of the north of the country, Lantto says its does not add up to much in practice as it’s next to impossible for herders to prove they have been using the land.

And despite some recent court rulings in their favour, it would seem that the odds are against them.

“There’s a strong sentiment that reindeer husbandry could prevent development in the north,” he said.

“In a recent case the environmental court clearly stated that Sweden has a goal of increasing it’s percentage of renewable energy and this is a goal which ways more heavily than protecting the rights of reindeer herders.”

Source: Sveriges Radio

Indistry Minister of Norway Trond Giske With Minerals Map of Northern Scandinavia. His governement has just announced a huge increase in funding to support the mining industry - Source adressa.no

So said, the Minister for Industry of Norway (Labour Party) while announcing a big increase in funding for mining exploration in the country in a story that appeared in Adressa.no

The Norwegian Geological Survey (NGU) believes there is a vast wealth of minerals and ore under the soil just waiting to be exploiting – only what holds them back is insufficient knowledge. That will soon change thanks to the Norwegian government announcing an extra 100 million NOK (ca. 17M USD)) over four years to searching for gold and other precious metals, mainly in northern Norway.

The first 25 million (4.3M USD) will come in next year’s budget, which is presented on Tuesday. This will represent a doubling of the Geological Survey currently receive for such work.

Giske acknowledged that as most of the deposits are in Northern Norway, this may lead to conflict with reindeer herders, but insisted that any conflict between reindeer herding and mining was “fully manageable”

Not according to Nils Henrik Sara, the leader of the Sami Reindeer Herders Association of Norway(NRL), in a reaction in NRK Sami Radio,

“It’s not as simple as the industry minister told Adresseavisen.  But of course for their enforcement system, it might be “manageable” because they do not account for what the reindeer industry says, and thus it is easy for them to get the reindeer industry to follow their terms “

The NRL leader clearly stated that their organization is against all mining in areas used by reindeer husbandry.

“NRL is against all who have an intention to destroy the industry’s reindeer pastures.  Mining destroys grazing for reindeer, and it can not be accepted by NRL”

“Let the treasure hunt begin” the Minister was quoted as saying in the news report…

by Ed Struzik, from Environment 360

In late July, a group of Inuit hunters set off by boat along the west coast of Banks Island to search for Peary caribou, which inhabit the Arctic archipelago of Canada. Roger Kuptana, a 62-year-old Inuit who had grown up on the island, didn’t give his fellow hunters much chance of success in their hunt for the animals, the smallest caribou sub-species in North America.

“I think it’s a waste of gas,” Kuptana told me when I visited his modest home in Sachs Harbour, a traditional community of roughly 100 people on the island, not far from the Yukon-Alaska border. “There used to be a lot of caribou around here when I grew up. But now you have to travel pretty far north to find them on the island. It’s not just here. It seems like this happening everywhere.”

As it turned out, Kuptana was right; the Inuit hunters found no Peary caribou, despite three days of searching. The hunters’ predicament is familiar to the Eskimos of Alaska, other Inuit of Canada and Greenland, and the Nenets, Komi, Evenks, Chukotkans, and indigenous groups of northern Russia and Scandinavia. Throughout the Arctic, many of the great caribou and reindeer herds that once roamed the treeless tundra, providing an indispensible source of meat and clothing for aboriginal groups, are in free-fall.

Thirty-four of the 43 major herds that scientists have studied worldwide in the last decade are in decline, with caribou numbers plunging 57 percent from their historical peaks. Some populations have fallen precipitously: The Bathurst herd in Canada’s central Arctic has plummeted from a peak of 472,000 in 1986 to 32,000 today — a drop of 93 percent.

According to scientists, the causes of the global caribou decline are straightforward: rapidly rising Arctic temperatures are throwing caribou out of sync with the environment in which they evolved; oil and gas development, mining, logging, and hydropower projects in the Far North are impinging on the caribou’s range; and, though not a major factor, hunting is further depleting already beleaguered caribou populations.

In the 1.6 million years that caribou have roamed the northern hemisphere, their populations have risen and fallen with cycles of glaciation and deglaciation. In more recent millennia, populations have ebbed and flowed on a regional basis. But what concerns many caribou experts now is the rapid, global decline of caribou and reindeer (reindeer is the Old World name for the caribou, Rangifer tarandus) in the face of precipitous warming.

Two caribou experts from the University of Alberta, Liv Vors and Mark Boyce, have done extensive research showing that a host of factors related to warming are taking a heavy toll on caribou populations, which they say now “hover on the precipice of major decline.” These factors range from a growing incidence of extreme weather and ice storms, which prevent caribou from reaching lichen and other vegetation under the ice, to a significant increase in mosquitoes and flies, which torment the animals and prevent them from foraging and gaining the body mass needed to successfully reproduce.

Peary caribou have been particularly hard hit by weather-related events. Back in 1961, when the first aerial survey of the Arctic islands was done, biologists estimated Peary caribou numbers to be 24,000. Since then, at

least two catastrophic freeze-ups that were caused by early fall ice storms and rains and early, short-lived spring thaws resulted in more than 90 percent of the animals starving to death because they could not punch through the ice to get to food. Peary caribou populations have fallen today to about 2,000 animals. Scientists in the far-northern Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard told me earlier this spring that they are seeing the same kind of icing take a toll on reindeer in that region.

While there is evidence to suggest that these severe icings have happened in the past, there are also signs that they are likely to occur more often in the future. In recent decades, the Arctic has been heating up twice as fast as the rest of the northern hemisphere — with temperatures routinely rising by 4 to 5 degrees F — making fall rains, early thaws, and severe icing events increasingly common.

Both caribou and reindeer are better adapted to cold than they are to warmer, moister weather. In cold, dry winters there is less snow to slow them down and sap their energy while they’re on the move or being chased by wolves. Less snow, especially if it is not icy and hard-packed, also makes it easier for them to dig down to the vegetation they need in order to get them through to the summer months.

But the icing problem is only one of a host of warming-related effects now plaguing caribou. In a paper published last year in Global Change Biology, Vors and Boyce detailed these impacts. As spring arrives earlier and earlier, “the flush of highly nutritious plant growth” has advanced. Yet caribou reproduction and calving are not occurring earlier, meaning the calves are born past the peak of prime forage availability.

In addition, the lichen and other tundra plants favored by caribou are gradually being replaced by shrubs and trees that are advancing northward as the Arctic warms. Vladislav Nuvano, an expert on the history of reindeer herding in Chukotka, in the Russian Far East, told me recently that reindeer herders there are seeing woody shrubs expand at the expense of lichens and other reindeer food.

Vors and Boyce also reported that rising temperatures have led to an increase in mosquitoes and flies, whose harassment of caribou interferes with their ability to forage and ultimately means that the animals gain less weight. One study in southern Norway showed that rather than increasing foraging times to compensate for harrying by insects, the animals lost body

mass, which makes it harder for the calves to survive the winter and for adults to successfully reproduce.

As other, more southerly animals, such as deer, move north as the Arctic warms, they invade caribou territory, bringing with them disease, such as the meningeal brain worm, according to Vors and Boyce. The worm does not harm deer, but kills caribou. In addition, as moose arrive from the south, wolf packs follow them, and while the much-larger moose are more successful at fending off wolves, caribou succumb more easily to the predators.

Komi reindeer herders along the Kola Peninsula in Arctic Russia are already complaining that their animals are losing 20 percent of their weight by the time they take them to slaughter. Not only is heavy snow making it more difficult to move the animals, warmer temperatures are delaying the winter round-up by up to two months because the lakes the herders need to cross are not freezing over as fast as they once did.

The other major threat to global caribou populations is industrial encroachment — the roads, pipelines, drilling platforms, mines, dams, and other human development that is shrinking the size and quality of the habitat these animals can move to when they become stressed by climate changes and overhunting.

In northern Canada, French mining giant Areva is proposing a $1.5 billion uranium mine near the calving grounds of the Beverly caribou herd, located in Nunavut Territory. That herd’s numbers have fluctuated considerably in recent decades, going from an estimated 210,00 in 1971 to 110,000 in 1980, to 286,000 in 1994. Aerial surveys done in the past several years show a steep drop in both the number of cows and calves, indicating that the herd now contains far fewer animals than in the mid-1990s.

The Canadian government is backing the Areva project, which will include four open pit mines, one underground mine, and the construction of roads

and bridges. The project promises to create 400 jobs, many of which will go to the chronically underemployed Inuit in the region. But indigenous hunters oppose the mine, saying it could seal the fate of the Beverly caribou herd and create a precedent that will endanger other herds in the Canadian tundra. Half of the world’s caribou populations live in Canada’s Far North, which also contains most of the world’s uranium.

Farther south in Canada, logging and other human activities have led to a steady decline in numbers of woodland and mountain caribou. Yet, according to University of Montana caribou expert Mark Hebblewhite, Environment Canada has dragged its feet for years on creating reserves and migration corridors for these caribou sub-species.

Across the Arctic, development — sometimes aided by warming that is increasingly opening up the once ice-covered Arctic Ocean — threatens caribou and reindeer. In the central region of the Russian Arctic, the reindeer-herding Evenks have been struggling to stop a $13 billion hydroelectric development that will flood an area ten times the size of New York City.

In Greenland, a 22-mile access road that was built in 2000 between the Kangerlussuaq airport and the Greenland Ice Cap has already caused a major habitat alteration for the Kangerlussuaq-Sisimiut herd. The road, which provides year-round access to tourists, day-trippers, and hunters, traverses what was once sensitive habitat for the herd during the calving and post-calving periods. Now, ALCOA, the world’s largest producer of aluminum, wants to build a giant smelter in the region, along with several hydro dams to power it.

Anne Gunn, a former biologist with the government of the Northwest Territories and now a scientific consultant, is concerned that the whittling away of caribou habitat is occurring just as the animals are feeling the effects of global warming. Unlike some scientists, Gunn, who has more than 30 years of field experience, believes caribou can adapt to the climate changes occurring now. She is most concerned that very little is being done to protect critical caribou habitat, especially the critical calving grounds and migration corridors. Of 24 large caribou herds being tracked by CARMA — the Circumpolar Rangifer Monitoring and Assessment Network — only the calving grounds of the Porcupine and Bluenose West herds are fully or largely protected.

“For caribou it is all about ‘space’ — their perceptions of what space they need, including the space needed to distance themselves from us,” said Gunn. “Climate change and overhunting are very serious factors that need to be addressed. But unless we give caribou the space they need, I’m afraid we’re going to see these declines continue.”

The Canadian mining company Blackstone ventures has managed to buy the rights to start drilling in the Vindelfjällen nature reserve in the north of Sweden. The company is planning to drill right by one of the most ancient Sámi summer villages still inhabited every summer by the reindeer herders and reindeer  of Grans Sameby, the northernmost mountain Sami village in Västerbotten.

This story has been getting some coverage in the Swedish Sami media, most recently with this  story,  where it was reported that the Grans Sameby wanted  Blackstone to pay them 1.5 million SEK (215,000 USD) for the additional work and feed for reindeer because now Sami had to keep animals in enclosures and feed them artificially instead of free-grazing. Village leader, Tobias Jonsson says that they had several meetings with Blackstone, only when the company applied for exploration permits for areas Vindelvaggen 1-4, and Umeå lake. Then they had several consultations on the work plans, but the mining company Blackstone has been unwilling to listen to the Sami village’s views.

Пресс-служба Государственного Собрания (Ил Тумэн) Республики Саха (Якутия) сообщает, что депутаты парламента приняли в ходе XVI пленарного заседания республиканский закон об этнологической экспертизе в местах традиционного проживания и традиционной хозяйственной деятельности коренных малочисленных народов Севера.

Данный документ является законодательной инициативой группы народных депутатов республики – Виктора Губарева, Александра Крылова, Юрия Дойникова, Дмитрия Горохова, Андрея Кривошапкина, Сергея Ларионова, Елены Голомаревой, Семена Иванова. Как сообщил председатель постоянного комитета по проблемам Арктики и коренных малочисленных народов Севера Виктор Губарев, понятие «этнологическая экспертиза» в российское законодательство было введено в 1999 году федеральным законом «О гарантиях прав коренных малочисленных народов Российской Федерации».

«Но порядок проведения этнологической экспертизы, ее методы и критерии федеральными законами так до сих пор и не установлены», – отметил депутат. По его словам, новый закон принят в целях предотвращения и предупреждения негативных воздействий намечаемой хозяйственной и иной деятельности на исконную среду обитания, традиционного образа жизни, хозяйствования и промыслов, социально-экономического и культурного развития коренных малочисленных народов Севера Якутии.

Этнологическая экспертиза определена как научное исследование влияния изменений исконной среды обитания малочисленных народов и социально-культурной ситуации на развитие этноса.

«Смета расходов, порядок использования финансовых средств на проведение этнологической экспертизы утверждается правительством Якутии на основе предложений уполномоченного органа исполнительной власти. Уполномоченный орган может выполнять комплексный анализ демографической ситуации, социально-экономического положения и устойчивости этнокультурной среды групп коренного населения, проживающих в зоне потенциального воздействия промышленного освоения», – сказал Виктор Губарев.

По его словам, этнологическая экспертиза отражает не только оценку воздействия промышленного освоения на сообщества коренного и местного населения, но и рекомендации по осуществлению долгосрочных программ социально-экономической реабилитации коренных малочисленных народов Севера, образовательных программ, программ по сохранению культурного наследия, созданию фонда будущих поколений.

«Председатель правительства РФ Владимир Путин 28 августа 2009 года подписал распоряжение о плане мероприятий по реализации в 2009-2011 годах Концепции устойчивого развития коренных малочисленных народов Севера, Сибири и Дальнего Востока. Первым пунктом в этом документе указана разработка проекта нормативного правового акта о возмещении убытков, причиненных коренным малочисленным народам в результате нанесения хозяйственной деятельностью ущерба их исконной среде обитания», – отметил депутат.

Он также добавил, что в принятии данного республиканского закона заинтересован комитет Совета Федерации по делам Севера и коренных малочисленных народов. «Есть предпосылки, что наш закон станет основой для принятия соответствующего федерального закона», – сообщил Виктор Губарев.

Источник: Пресс-служба Ил Тумэна

The Moscow Times informed that “RusHydro” will not decide on whether to build a dam in Evenkia this year, the company said Friday, after the project was lambasted at public hearings in Krasnoyarsk.

The Energy Ministry has finished work on the 2020 general plan of power generation, which predicts a growth in annual power consumption of up to 3.1 percent through 2030, Prime-Tass reported Thursday. A ministry representative said last week that the Evenkia dam was not included in the plan, which is expected to be submitted to the Cabinet for approval this summer.

Removal of the $21 billion Evenkia dam from the government’s official plan would once again put a hold on the controversial project, which met with fierce resistance from local residents and environmentalists.

Regional lawmakers and scientists discussed the dam Wednesday in the Krasnoyarsk legislative assembly, which said RusHydro had not sufficiently researched the consequences of constructing the dam and asked the government to look into alternative energy sources, according to the draft resolution. RusHydro did not attend the hearing.

The Moscow Times

Project of Evenki Hydropower Station in Krasnoyarskiy Krai

The construction would flood about 1 million hectares of the unique deciduous forests and pastures traditionally used by the Evenki reindeer herders and hunters. It would also flood a chamber that contains the radioactive brine left as a result of at least one of the underground nuclear explosions fired in the Lower Tunguska’s floodplain in 1970s.

The hydropower construction can bring to the population of Evenkia: destruction of the key traditional nature use territories; flood of the settlements including Tura, the capital of Evenkia; impossibility of  navigation of the Lower Tunguska, which means a destruction of the transport system; huge influx of strange population that is well-known for its destructive influence on the indigenous peoples’ life.

In their complaint the Saami Council argue that the project is socially unsustainable and in breach of Saami rights.

The Swedish government has granted planning permission for the world’s largest land based wind power park to be built in the municipality of Piteå, Sweden, where the Saami community of Östra Kikkejaur have their winter reindeer herding pastures. The wind power park will consist of over 1000 wind turbines, an 800 km road, and extensive infrastructure, which means that reindeer herding in the area will be severely restricted.

”The Swedish state has admitted that the project will destroy at least 25% of the Saami community’s winter reindeer herding pastures, but the state has argued that renewable energy is more important than Saami rights. The financier of the project’s first phase, the German bank KfW IPEX-Bank, has defended their investment by referring to the Swedish state’s approval of the project. But the state planning permission, and thereby KfW IPEX-Bank’s financing,  are in breach of international law because Saami rights are not being respected”, says Mattias Åhrén, president for the Saami Council.

Download the Press Release 1004 Press release Markbygden

Download the Letter of Noticification to the Bank KfW IPEX 1004 Markbygden OECD

Text of the full press release below

German bank finances giant wind power project in breach of Saami rights

Saami Council has today lodged a complaint over the German KfW IPEX-Bank’s financing of a giant wind power project on Saami reindeer herding territories. The wind power project risks making reindeer herding unviable in the area and is therefore in breach of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. In their complaint the Saami Council argue that the project is socially unsustainable and in breach of Saami rights.

The Swedish government has granted planning permission for the world’s largest land based wind power park to be built in the municipality of Piteå, Sweden, where the Saami community of Östra Kikkejaur have their winter reindeer herding pastures. The wind power park will consist of over 1000 wind turbines, an 800 km road, and extensive infrastructure, which means that reindeer herding in the area will be severely restricted.

”The Swedish state has admitted that the project will destroy at least 25% of the Saami community’s winter reindeer herding pastures, but the state has argued that renewable energy is more important than Saami rights. The financier of the project’s first phase, the German bank KfW IPEX-Bank, has defended their investment by referring to the Swedish state’s approval of the project. But the state planning permission, and thereby KfW IPEX-Bank’s financing,  are in breach of international law because Saami rights are not being respected”, says Mattias Åhrén, president for the Saami Council.

The Saami community has been in contact with the German bank, KfW IPEX-Bank, and highlighted the fact that the bank’s financing of the project is not in line with the bank’s commitments regarding human rights, indigenous rights, and environmental sustainability. The Saami community has also requested a meeting with the bank, but the bank has ignored the community’s request. In their communication with the community KfW IPEX-Bank claim that the bank’s commitments do not apply to projects in OECD countries, and therefore are not relevant to Sweden. The bank argues that they follow Swedish law and the decisions of Swedish public authorities, and that this is guarantee enough that Saami rights are respected.

”The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises apply of course to projects in all countries, and Sweden is no exception. We look forward to a dialog with the German government regarding KfW IPEX-Bank’s investment in this controversial project. It is a myth that Sweden respects human rights”, says Mattias Åhrén, president for the Saami Council.

Sweden has received repeated and harsh international critique from the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the UN Human Rights Committee because Sweden breaches Saami land rights by not regulating resource development activities on traditional Saami lands and does not give Saami communities the opportunity for effective participation in decisions that affect them.

Contact: Mattias Åhrén, President, Saami Council +47 47 37 91 61

Distinguished Scientist
The renowned scientist Dr. Robert W. Corell has accepted a professorship in this new Arctic Institute. Dr Corell brings with him an impressive CV and unique experience for the position, which is financed jointly by the Sámi University College and the International Center for Reindeer Husbandry.

Corell was the leader of the Arctic Council project ACIA (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment), is head of the CAI (Climate Action Initiative), a senior adviser to the Global Environment and Technology Foundation, and former vice president at the H. John Heinz II Center for Science, Economics and Environment .

Al Gore’s adviser
Dr. Corell has been working a lot with research on climate and global change in addition to the interaction between research and policy, particularly research that focuses on global and regional climate change and related environmental issues.

In Tromsø in April 2009 Dr. Corell led the Melting Ice Conference with Vice President Al Gore and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, and since 2000 he has worked with reindeer herders and researchers in Kautokeino.

Dr. Robert Corell had the original idea for the EALÁT project (Reindeer Herders vulnerability networks study: Reindeer pastoralism in a changing climate) which later was initiated by the Association of World Reindeer Herders. He has been a member of the research group in EALÁT since 2005 and has published several articles together with this group.

Dr. Corell is also a researcher for Arctic Governance Project, an international arctic management study.

Includes Arctic indigenous people
The professorship is awarded to Dr. Corell to honor and recognize his willingness to include the Arctic Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge and understanding in research on the effects of global change.

The reindeer herding societies in all arctic and subarctic regions now face pervasive changes. The challenges of climate change, increased development and globalization are so extensive that we must use the best available evidence in order to adapt to the future.

But which and whose knowledge is this? Of course, the science-based knowledge has been and will continue to be important. But often the best available evidence in fact is the knowledge of the reindeer herders – the traditional knowledge that is developed through careful observation of reindeer and nature, transmitted from generation to generation, and used every day by both reindeer herders in the tundra and the taiga.

Dr. Robert Corell is widely known for hes support to include the Arctic indigenous peoples in research and reviews, and with this new position he will be better able to continue to support the ongoing efforts to develop adaptation strategies for future climate change in Arctic communities.

Read the press release and view pictures here on the Reindeer Portal

Military operations in the Mauken reindeer herding district’s conflict with the military in their region (about which a documentary has been made in 2006) is in the media again,

Reindeer herders are attempting to prevent a golf course development in Bardu in Troms and Nils M. Utsi, the head of Reindeer Herding District No. 22 has stated in the media that he believes that mining plans in the Kvalsund region are attempting to squeeze out reindeer husbandry. Metallica Mining, wants to mine 7 million tonnes of ore (copper) in their area with the support of the local municipality that claims 50-100 jobs will be created.