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Mining the Boreal North

Nancy Langston

few days after Christmas, have thrived in the boreal forest. With- A I took the train south from Resource extraction out people, reindeer might not have Kiruna, a small mining town 200 ki- thrived as well. lometers above the Arctic Circle in Reindeer are well suited to the tai- Sweden. All three train cars were filled decisions are not ga’s frigid winters. They can maintain a with Asian tourists drawn to Kiruna thermogradient between body core and by the promises of shiny brochures: simply about the environment of up to 100 degrees, “See the Aurora Borealis in the last in part because of insulation provid- pristine wilderness in Europe! Come wilderness ed by their fur, and in part because of to Sweden’s pure nature!” counter-current vascular heat exchange I stood at the window and watched preservation or systems in their legs and nasal passag- the taiga—the boreal forest—slip by es. Cold is little problem; the challenge through the polar night. The moon rose development is finding food. Reindeer migration pat- over stunted spruce and birch trees terns reduce some, but not all, of their bent beneath drifts of snow. From in- vulnerability to food scarcity. side the warmth of the train, you could Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Sámi herders do not just follow the imagine the land outside as the frozen Peninsula of Russia—since the retreat of reindeer. They have negotiated complex Arctic wilderness pictured in the tourist the glaciers. relationships with the animals, basing brochures, protected from human influ- For centuries, urban governments an eight-season migration pattern on the ence by bitter cold and distance. have used the idea of the taiga as un- reindeer’s seasonal cycles. From March But my partner and I had just spent inhabited and remote to promote colo- until April, the pregnant female rein- the week with Sámi hosts on a farm in nization of the north for its resources. deer began to move out of lowland for- Puoltsa, a village 27 kilometers from Open-pit iron mines proposed for ests toward mountain pastures. In April Kiruna along the Kalix River. Even Sámi territory in the ore-rich landscape to May, calves are born, and the cows though daytime temperatures rarely near Kiruna, Sweden, continue to be choose spring pastures where snow rose above –36 degrees Celsius, the justified by similar logic. The Kiruna melts early, allowing them to supple- landscape that looked so silent from the region contains the largest under- ment their lichen diet with leaves, grass train buzzed with activity. Wood had to ground iron ore mine in the world; 90 and herbs. In June, reindeer select ripar- be chopped, guests had to be fetched, percent of all iron ore mined in Europe ian vegetation near marshes and brooks, reindeer and horses had to be fed sup- comes from here. From the Swedish allowing them to quickly regain weight plemental hay, snowmobiles had to be government’s perspective, mining is lost during the long winter. From June tinkered with. The taiga is anything inevitable because the world needs to July, when parasitic flies become a but pristine wilderness: It is an inhab- iron ore for steel, and the government problem in the lowlands, reindeer move ited landscape where the indigenous needs mining profits to fund the social up into high, windy mountain mead- Sámi and their reindeer have lived ever programs integral to Swedish society. ows where they can find relief from since the ice retreated 10,000 years ago. But from the Sámi perspective, the both insects and heat. When August Yet the wilderness perception persists, proposed mines would make it im- comes, reindeer build up fat and mus- particularly now when a tourist boom possible to continue reindeer herding, cle to prepare for the winter and begin makes it profitable. ending thousands of years of success- their migration to lower pastures, where Why does a flawed idea of wilder- ful cultural adaptation to the taiga. the rutting period commences. During ness matter? It renders invisible the the rut, cows continue to accumulate Sámi, indigenous people who have Environmental Histories of the Taiga reserves for the winter, while the bulls lived in what they call Sápmi—northern As the inland ice retreated from Sá- use much of their stored body fat and pmi some 10,000 years ago, reindeer muscle weight, which they need to re- (Rangifer tarandus) followed the edge plenish during the brief autumn season. Nancy Langston is the King Carl XVI Gustaf Pro- fessor of Environmental Science at Umeå Univer- of the ice as it retreated northward, When the snows deepen in early winter, sity in Sweden. Her current research can be found and the ancestors of the Sámi people the reindeer migrate back toward low- at sustaininglakesuperior.com. Her most recent came with them. The anthropologist land forests where they can dig through book is Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors and Piers Vitebsky has argued that with- the snow cover to reach their main win- the Legacy of DES (Yale University Press, 2010). out reindeer, human cultures could not ter food source: ground lichens. From

98 American Scientist, Volume 101 © 2013 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction with permission only. Contact [email protected]. December through March, the coldest season, reindeer graze for lichens and berry plants in the coniferous forests. These migration patterns paid little at- tention to national borders; to find the best forage, reindeer often crossed from summer pastures in Norway into Swe- den and Finland winter territories. Originally hunters of reindeer rather than herders, the Sámi shifted to herding semi-domesticated reindeer after European incursions into their lands reduced their subsistence resources. In the 9th century, Norse chieftains moved onto Sámi lands and began tax- ing the Sámi. Records from a chieftain called Ottar, who was in the employ of King Alfred the Great of England, give some sense of the annual taxes demanded from the Sámi: “A man of the highest rank has to contribute the skins of fifteen martens and five reindeer and one bear and forty bushels of feathers and a tunic made of bearskin or otterskin and two ships’ cables … made either of whaleskin or of seal- The northern reaches of Finland, Norway, Sweden and a portion of Russia are the ancestral home skin.” Kevin Crossley-Holland also of the Sámi, nomadic reindeer herders. Although this region, Sápmi, is often billed as pristine notes that Ottar mentioned that the wilderness, it in fact bustles with activity, even near the winter solstice, when temperatures Sámi had trained reindeer as decoys often stay below –30 degrees Celsius. The Sámi people lie at a complex and indistinct boundary to bring the wild herds closer for eas- formed between natural communities such as reindeer, domestication of these same animals, ier hunting, suggesting that a shift in marks of civilization such as snowmobiles, and industrialization and mining brought by outsid- subsistence practices from hunting to ers. Moose often come down into villages during winter. (All photographs by the author.) herding reindeer had already begun. Trappers and traders came to Sápmi in Pite Lappmark, close to the Norwe- their escape. Much of their territory to capitalize on the growing European gian border. Silver revenues might help near the mine became depopulated. market for furs, selling firearms to the fund war expenses that burdened the In 1673, the Swedish king encour- Sámi. The Sámi intensified hunting, Swedish state, so in 1635, mining began aged Swedish citizens from the south depleting the boreal forests of fur- at the Nasafjäll works. to move north and colonize the Sámi bearing animals and reindeer. As sub- Transport of ore to smelters and then area. Few Swedes, however, were in- sistence resources dwindled, the Sámi to markets was vital for mining devel- terested in moving to a place they saw began to domesticate wild reindeer, opment. The Swedes believed that the as remote, barren and inhospitable, and by the 17th century, herding of Sámi were too weak and lazy to dig even when the king promised relief semi-domesticated reindeer had large- ore but were useful for transporting from military service and taxation. ly replaced hunting of wild reindeer. that ore. Sámi were ordered to use their The Swedes who moved into the forest The north, in European eyes, seemed reindeer to carry ore 60 kilometers be- found settled farming nearly impos- empty of people (even though the Sámi tween the Nasafjäll mine and the smelt- sible in the harsh climate, so they began provided essential taxes), and that emp- ing works. The Sámi refused, fearing hunting and fishing on Sámi lands and tiness justified it becoming Sweden’s the work would interfere with reindeer cutting hay in winter reindeer pastures. colony for resource extraction—first for herding cycles. Swedish workers de- The Sámi herding territories and fishing furs, then for minerals, timber and en- scribed how they forced the Sámi to grounds were squeezed by the new im- ergy. In 1542, the Swedish king Gustav comply: “We tied them to a couple of migrants, but when conflicts arose, the Vasa proclaimed that “all permanently timbers, pushed them down into the Sámis were able to assert their commu- uninhabited land belongs to God, Us rapids a few times and then pulled nal property rights in Swedish courts. and the Swedish Crown, and nobody them up to allow the water to run out else.” In 1635, cabinet minister Carl of their mouths again, so all the people Industrialization Bonde wrote to the Swedish statesman working in the mine were aware of the With 19th century industrialism, co- Axel Oxenstierna describing silver ore situation.” Contemporary accounts lonial development of the north’s re- deposits in the north, expressing his be- speak of the road “lined with bleached sources exploded, transforming Sámi lief that the boreal north could become reindeer skeletons long after mining relations with reindeer and territory Sweden’s own West Indies. The year finished.” Many Sámi refused what once again. Although a series of ear- before, a Sámi man named Peder Olofs- they saw as enslavement and instead lier court decisions had affirmed Sámi son had mentioned to some Swedes fled to Norway, even though the Swed- property rights, the Swedish state now that he had found silver ore in Nasafjäll ish government sent troops to prevent saw Sámi communal land ownership www.americanscientist.org © 2013 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction 2013 March–April 99 with permission only. Contact [email protected]. as an obstacle to exploitation of boreal resources. To justify stripping the Sámi Barents Sea of their property rights, the Swedish Norwegian Sea government turned to the contempo- I P M rary science of racial difference. Eugeni- S Á cists and social Darwinists argued that Narvik the Sámi were an inferior race, unable Torne River Kiruna to make adult decisions, so the Swedes would have to decide what would hap- ARCT Kalix River IC CIRCLE pen on Sámi lands. Swedish policy toward the Sámi was defended with a racist ideology that claimed to have found “scientific verification” of Dar- RUSSIA win’s theory of natural selection and the survival of the fittest within the human Nasafjäll community. FINLAND In 1886, Sweden passed the Rein- deer Husbandry Act, which reduced Sámi ownership of land and water to mere usufruct rights. The Sámi could no longer own the land; they only re- NORWAY tained limited rights to graze, fish and SWEDEN hunt. Those Sámi who did not herd reindeer and instead made their living primarily from fishing lost their land and forest use rights. Only Sámi who met certain ideas of traditional reindeer culture were protected, and only North a if they remained frozen within static Sea e S notions of primitiveness. ic lt Sámi communities had tradition- a B ally organized themselves along the principle of the siida, which were both territories and governance structures. Most of Sápmi (shades of green) lies above the Arctic Circle. The author traveled to a small Rather than individual land ownership, Sámi community near Kiruna, where she learned about the long history of their subsistence each siida managed its own territory for practices and how industrialization and mining in the region have affected them. hunting and fishing. As reindeer migration and herding patterns changed, siida boundaries changed as well. Groups of siidas formed a single Sámi village or samebyar. Individual families owned reindeer, but the complex governance rules within Sámi villages managed pastures and migration routes coopera- tively. This was not an open-access commons system; it was a carefully regu- lated land tenure system that prevented overgrazing in most circumstances. However, like many other traditional land tenure systems, it was vulnerable to political decisions about property that were imposed from outside the region. In the 1920s, an agreement between the Norwegian and Swedish governments prevented the Sámi in Swe- den from grazing their herds over the border into Norway. This, along with mining and timber projects, reduced the pastures available for the The village of Puoltsa lies about 27 kilometers from Kiruna along the Kalix River, one of only Sámi, and overgrazing resulted. The four large river systems in Sweden that remains unregulated by hydropower installations. Swedish state believed that overgraz- Despite the bucolic appearance, a nearby underground mine provides 90 percent of the iron ing resulted from the traditional land ore produced in Europe, and proposed new mines would affect reindeer herding. tenure systems (a “tragedy of the com-

100 American Scientist, Volume 101 © 2013 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction with permission only. Contact [email protected]. mons”), rather than from undermining those traditional land tenure systems by state policy decisions. The Swedes decided that they needed to rationalize Sámi grazing and ordered massive reduction of herds and herders. As Sámi lost their property rights, timber harvests increased across Sáp- mi, further reducing grazing habitat for reindeer. Clear-cutting removed nearly all the older spruce forest, critical habitat for the pendulous lichen that forms important winter food for the reindeer. Modern forestry involved plowing, drainage and soil scarification, which reduced the ground-growing lichens that sustained reindeer during fall and spring. A series of court cases in the 1990s, when forest companies argued that reindeer were damaging replanted trees, further undermined the rights of Sámi to graze their herds in traditional winter forest pastures. Hydropower development also transformed riparian and aquatic communities across Sápmi. In the 1950s and Reindeer herded by the Sámi are actually semi-domesticated. That is, the herders do much ‘60s, Sweden turned to intensive hydro- to control the migration patterns of the reindeer, yet the reindeer still do and must migrate electric development to fuel modern- to find suitable habitats for the extremes of climate. Proposals for new open-pit mines in the region could obstruct the usual migration paths and destroy large portions of spring and fall ization of the Swedish postwar society. pasture land now in use. The government envisioned a system whereby each river that fell to the Baltic would be dammed, the power of the running from the Baltic port of Luleå, sions. Yet the toxic legacies persist. To- flow fully utilized for the nation’s in- through the iron ore region of Kiruna, day, according to Per-Ola Hoffsten and dustrial development. The state formed then down to the ice-free port of Nar- colleagues, “wastes from the Kiruna a hydroelectric company, Vattenfall, vik on the Norwegian coast. The min- mine … [continue to] drain into the which set out to rationalize the river ing boom at Kiruna was on. Kalix River. Mercury pollution causes systems of the north. Between 1957 and Initially open-pit mines, the Kiruna problems locally in Lake Ala Lombolo 1961, Vattenfall turned to the Kalix and mines transformed the landscape. His- in the Kiruna area that drains into the Torne river system in Sápmi. In what toric photos show that mountaintops Torne River at Jukkasjarvi via Luossajoki would have been the largest hydro were removed to reach the rich ore de- stream. The impacts stem from previous project in Swedish history, the Atlant- posits, a precursor to today’s contro- pollution and still causes reduced inver- projekt, Vattenfall proposed reversing versial mountain top removal in Ap- tebrate diversity and deformed mouth- the flow of the rivers, so they would fall palachia. The work was dangerous, and parts in larval midges living here.” westward to the Atlantic Ocean instead pollution from the pit and tailings piles Global markets affect local condi- of eastward to the Baltic. With an intri- was notorious. Sulfates contributed to tions in Sápmi, remote as the region cate systems of dams, canals and tun- acidification both of local watersheds seems to many people. A global steel nels, half the flow of the rivers would and larger regional watersheds. Acids boom in recent years has increased have been diverted into Norway to leached toxic heavy metals from rocks Asian demand for iron, and LKAB (the power an enormous hydroplant. Com- where they had been safely locked up, Swedish-owned mining company that mercial fishing interests and Sámi rein- into river systems where they contami- operates the Kiruna iron mine) has de- deer herding villages organized, halting nated food chains that eventually in- cided to expand the mine, which means the project. Because of this intervention, cluded people. Smoke from smelters Kiruna’s city center must be moved, an the Kalix and Torne river system is one contained heavy metals such as cadmi- enormous logistical undertaking. of only four unregulated large rivers um and lead, which were captured by Local communities accept the need remaining in Sweden. lichen and then accumulated in reindeer to move Kiruna, but new open-pit and the people who ate them. Mine tail- mining proposals in the Kalix River Mining ings were stacked in enormous terraces, valley have met with more opposition. Swedes had long suspected that the and winds blew toxic dust over rein- In 2010, an Australian mining com- north contained some of the richest deer pastures. Sediments washed over pany named Kiruna Iron proposed to iron ore deposits in the world, but spawning beds for anadromous fish. create three new open-pit mines in the exploitation could not begin until the In the 1960s, the Kiruna mines moved Kalix River valley. These mines would transportation problem was solved. underground, safety records improved, operate for 10 to 20 years, depending In 1903, Sweden completed a railroad and treatment facilities reduced emis- on steel prices; Sweden would agree www.americanscientist.org © 2013 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction 2013 March–April 101 with permission only. Contact [email protected]. to collect no royalties or taxes on the ings piles eliminate lichen, then feed the Mining conflicts in the north are not profits. The Swedish government ap- reindeer something else. In this view, about preserving wilderness or devel- proved the proposal, ignoring the fact domesticated reindeer are essentially oping it. Rather, they revolve around that the proposed mines lie in the heart cogs in a machine, not members of inter- what kinds of relationships to natural of two Sámi reindeer villages. connected ecological systems. The logic communities will be supported—and The Sámi argued that the proposed assumes that sharp boundaries exist be- who has the right to decide. mines would alter ecological relation- tween wild and tamed nature. But rein- ships within their territories, making deer disrupt these boundaries, for they Bibliography it impossible for reindeer herding to are semi-domesticated creatures. The Baer, Lars-Anders. 1996. Boreal forest dwell- ers: The Saami in Sweden. Unasylva 47(3). persist. The mines, for example, would migration paths they choose are negotia- http://www.fao.org/docrep/w1033e/ likely consume 60 to 70 percent of the tions with the reindeer herders, not en- w1033e05.htm. spring pasture area and substantial gineered decisions imposed by technical Berg, Bård A. 1996. Government intervention portions of fall pasture. Mining infra- logic. The food they eat is neither purely into Sámi reindeer management in Norway: structure would block critical migra- natural nor domestic, and the pastures Has it prevented or provoked “tragedies of the commons?” 1. Acta Borealia 13 (2): 69–89. tion routes, and dust from tailing piles they need cannot simply be replaced. doi: 10.1080/08003839608580454. would change succession patterns in Crossley-Holland, Kevin. 1999. The Anglo- spring pastures, allowing grass to over- Conclusion Saxon World: An Anthology. New York: Ox- take ground lichen. Autumn pastures Environmental history cannot tell us ford University Press. would also be reduced, increasing rein- whether mining in a particular place Hoffsten, P. O., T. Johnson, M. Uppman and E. Sjostrom. 2006. Undersokningas av bio- deer vulnerability to harsh winter condi- should happen—that is a social deci- ta, sediment och vattern I Ala Lomolo, Yli tions. From the Sámi perspective, “how sion, not a scientific or historical deci- Lombolo, Kuollistusjarvi, Jukkasjarvi och can 20 years of mining take priority over sion. But historical perspectives can re- Kallojarvi, Kiruna kommon. Report, Pelagia thousands of years of Sámi culture?” mind us that there is nothing natural or Miljokonsult AB. 21 pp. The Swedish government contends inevitable about resource development. Johansson, N. 2006. Atlantprojekt: en studie av planerna för det största projekter I svensk that the Sámi have no rights to exclude Resources are contingent and they vattenkraftshhistoria. Thesis. Luleå Tech- competing uses from Sámi territories. change over time. Calling something a nical University. Department of Business From their perspective, industrial de- resource pulls it out of its intricate social Administration and Social Sciences. velopment is inevitable and the Sámi and ecological relationships and isolates Klein, David R., and Martha Shulski. 2009. Li- must make way for it. If the good ore it in our gaze. Yet those isolations are chen recovery following heavy grazing by reindeer delayed by climate warming. AM- happens to interrupt a migration route, illusions. We still live in intimate rela- BIO: A Journal of the Human Environment then move the reindeer somewhere else. tionships with larger landscapes, even 38(1):11–16. doi: 10.1579/0044-7447-38.1.11. Put them in trucks if necessary. If tail- if we think technology isolates us from Paine, Robert. 1992. Social construction of the ecological constraints. “tragedy of the commons” and Saami rein- When minerals are deer pastoralism. Acta Borealia 9(2):3–20. dug from the ground, doi: 10.1080/08003839208580413. Among Cosmologists Paine, Robert. 1994. Herds of the Tundra: A Por- when trees are cut trait of Saami Reindeer Pastoralism, illustrated for Sarah Shandera in the forest, when edition. Washington, DC: Smithsonian. flood waters are di- Riseth, Jan Åge. 2003. Modernization challenges Breathlessly, with a shrug and a vague gesture, verted, when rivers and conflicting strategies: Reflections upon Empty hand palm up, collecting something are dammed, when the co-management alternative. In Indige- From empty space that is by all accounts nous Peoples: Resource Management and Global animals are changed Rights, ed. Jentoft, Svein, Henry Minde and Not empty, rather like the four-dimensional from fellow creatures Ragnar Nilsen. Eburon Uitgeverij B.V. Surface of an n-dimensional cauldron to livestock resources, Roturier, Samuel, and Marie Roué. 2009. Of Where bubbles form and wink out of existence, we set into motion forest, snow and lichen: Sámi reindeer The young expert on galaxies suggests, subtle processes of herders’ knowledge of winter pastures in A hundred billion? However the next Sloan Northern Sweden. Forest Ecology and Man- toxic transformation agement 258(9):1960–1967. doi: 10.1016/j. Survey announces the count of galaxies— that have legacies far foreco.2009.07.045. Red-shifting as they leave us past the tall into the future. Stone, Greg. 2012. Mines threaten reindeer Implacable vast light cone we cannot see Urban rulers long herders. Special to Northern News Ser- But know it marks the boundaries of seeing. envisioned the north vices, April 26. http://www.nnsl.com/ northern-news-services/stories/papers/ as a remote hinter- Doesn’t it keep you up at night, this outward apr16_12deer.html. land best suited for Rush of galaxies fleeing themselves and us UN Petition. 2012. Submitted by Mattias resource extraction. Åhrén of the Saami Council, on behalf of Into the infinite arms of the multiverse? Yet what environ- the Girjas Sami village, November 20, to the I ask. Oh no, she answers, catching her breath. mental history can United Nations Committee on the Elimina- What keeps me up is our recurrent failure tion of Racial Discrimination. www.samet- reveal are the ways To know the universe before inflation, inget.se/49821. that the north is in- Or offer quantum mechanics a foundation. Vitebsky, Piers. 2006. The Reindeer People: Living timately connected with Animals and Spirits in Siberia. Houghton It’s not the future, but the hidden past. to sites of industrial Mifflin Harcourt. It’s not what’s overhead, but underneath. activity by animal The Samiskt Informationscentrum (which is maintained by the Sámi Parliament) in- —Emily Grosholz migrations, by at- cludes an excellent website with histori- mospheric currents, cal records: http://www.eng.samer.se/ by historic legacies. servlet/GetDoc?meta_id=1004.