Social Impacts of Mining in Storuman Municipality: Results of a Survey to Local Residents
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Social Impacts of Mining in Storuman Municipality: Results of a survey to local residents Karina Umander, Gustaf Norlén and Leneisja Jungsberg Storuman Municipality and Nordregio, 2018 Contents Map of Storuman municipality ............................................................................................................ 3 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 4 2. Research material, methods and background information ............................................................ 4 3. Experienced impacts of mining on the attractiveness, infrastructure and services of Storuman .. 9 4. General attitudes toward mining .................................................................................................. 11 5. Social license to operate and regulatory control .......................................................................... 16 6. Environmental impacts .................................................................................................................. 20 7. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 22 8. References ..................................................................................................................................... 24 Map of Storuman municipality Below is a map of the municipality. Existing or potential mining establishments are written in blue uppercase text. 3 1. Introduction This survey is part of the project Regional Innovation in the Nordic Arctic and Scotland with a Special Focus on Regions with Large-Scale Projects (REGINA). The purpose of the project is to support the development of sparsely populated areas and their ability to benefit more from large-scale natural resource projects. REGINA is a three-year project that started in October 2015 and is carried out simultaneously in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Scotland and Greenland. The project is funded by the Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme. REGINA comprises a number of municipalities, regional development organizations and research institutes. As part of REGINA, Nordregio and Storuman municipality, in cooperation with the University of Lapland and Luleå University of Technology, conducted a survey in January to June 2017 aimed at residents in villages near an existing or planned mining establishment. The purpose of the survey was to analyse residents' views on mining operations and their experiences of mining impacts on the municipality. The survey also sought to increase the knowledge about how social consequences of large-scale industries are experienced in the municipality. Social consequences are the impacts of a large-scale project on society – be it individuals, families or communities. This report deals with mining projects, which, due to their scale, can have an impact on people's life and conditions. The consequences can be expressed as higher rents or real estate values due to increased demand for housing, as the traffic situation in the village centre, as lost areas for berry picking and hunting, as new employment opportunities, or as fear of losing the clean environment. At the municipal level, mining projects often increase tax revenues and strengthen people's faith in the future. At the same time, however, municipal debt and taxation levels can increase due to a growing demand for services. Mining projects can also create strong opinions that drive people into two opposing camps. 2. Research material, methods and background information This study is part of an international project and a similar study has been conducted in Sodankylä, Finland. The study has been designed by Lapland University and the questions have been translated from English to Swedish. For further information on the theoretical framework, see the report written by Lapland University.1 The study was conducted in Storuman municipality in the form of a survey aimed at a selection of respondents living near an existing or potential mining establishment in the eastern part of the municipality. The addresses were retrieved from the Municipal Register. The response period was about four months. The addressees were 16 years old and older. 571 questionnaires were sent to residents in smaller villages near an existing or potential mining establishment in Pauträsk, Barsele and Högland. The response period was 19 January to 13 June 2017. 217 responses were received, of which 175 per mail and 42 via the internet. In a study on mining, "Fjällnära Gruvdrift?", conducted by Luleå University of Technology and Umeå University the year before, questionnaires were sent to residents in the western part of the municipality, i.e. near Rönnbäck / Rönnbäcken outside Tärnaby. The study also held meetings with 1 Kuisma, M. and Suopajärvi, L. (2017) Social Impacts of Mining in Sodankylä. University of Lapland. http://www.reginaproject.eu/resourcecentre 4 local stakeholders. Respondents to this questionnaire are not the same as the respondents in the study "Fjällnära Gruvdrift?". The respondents of the survey are anonymous and each respondent has a number that is linked to the person’s answer. The quotation in the text comes from the free answer fields in the survey. The number after a citation is the number of the respondent. 53 percent of the respondents were men (n = 115) and 42 percent women (n = 91). The remaining 5 percent (n = 11) did not state their gender. Two-fifths had upper secondary and tertiary education (39 %). One-sixth had university education (16 %) and one-ninth had college or University College (11 %) as the highest education completed. Of those with vocational or tertiary education, the largest group was those with technical education (18 %), then those with education in health and social services (12 %), education/teaching (9 %), agriculture and forestry (7 %) and transport (7 %). 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Elementary/primary school Secondary school University of applied sciences University Some other No answer Figure 1. Education (highest completed education level) Three quarters of the respondents had lived for more than 10 years at their place of residence (74 %), indicating that the connection to the residence is strong. Figure 2. How long have you stayed at your place of residence? 5 Slightly more than two fifths of the respondents were over 65 years (43 %). However, this reflects the demographic structure of Storuman, in 2016 the old age dependency was 49 percent. Two thirds of the households consisted of one or two people (66 %) and only one quarter of the households consisted of three persons or more (24 %). Figure 3. Year of birth Only nine respondents (4 %) answered that they themselves, or someone else in their household, worked in a mine. A quarter of the respondents stated that they themselves or someone else in their household owned a property where there is an existing or planned mine (24 %). Most of these owned a property in Barsele/Gunnarn, but some also in Strömsund and elsewhere. Almost half of the respondents were retirees (45 %), slightly more than one-third were employed workers (36 %), some were self-employed (6 %), a few were jobseekers (2 %) and a small number were students (0,5 %). Unemployed 2 % Other 1 % Employee 36 % Pensioner 45 % Entrepreneur 6 % Student 0,5 % Figure 4. What is your main employment? 6 Half of the respondents did not have a significant part of their livelihood from natural resources (49 %). About a quarter of those with a significant part of their livelihood from natural resources had their income from forestry (23 %). A smaller number had a significant proportion of their livelihood from agriculture (5 %), from hydropower (3 %), from mining (2 %) and a few from hunting/fishing. None of the respondents had a significant portion of their livelihood from reindeer herding. No answer 16 % Forestry 23 % Agriculture 5 % Mining 2 % Hydroelectric power 3 % Reindeer herding 0 % No 49 % Other natural rescourse 2 % Figure 5. Do you have a significant part of your livelihood from a natural resource? One third of the respondents had an income between 10,000 and 30,000 Swedish kronor per month (34 %), one quarter had between 30,000 and 50,000 per month (24 %), one-fifth had more than 50,000 kronor (21 %) and less than a tenth had less than 10,000 Swedish kronor in income (8 %). Some of those who answered that they had an income of 110,000 Swedish kronor or more per month, might have misunderstood the question and thought that the question was about annual income. 7 40,0 35,0 33,6 30,0 25,0 23,5 20,0 14,7 14,3 15,0 10,0 7,8 4,6 5,0 0,9 0,5 0,0 1 Less than 10 000 10 000 - 29 999 29 999 - 49 999 50 000 - 69 999 70 000 - 89 999 90 000 - 109 999 110 000 or more No answer Figure 6. Gross income (an estimate of total monthly income in the household in Swedish kronor) The only question with a significantly lower response rate was the question about ethnicity (the response rate was 80 %). A clear majority of those who responded stated that they do not belong to any of the Swedish national minorities. Only three of the respondents stated that they belong to an ethnic minority. Far fewer than expected stated that they are Sami. The majority of the Sami people live in the western part of the municipality.2 Therefore, it is natural that the response rate is low. As there were so few representing the Sami group, there cannot be any conclusions about how to improve the support to