Browsing by Subject "critical raw materials"

As part of the European Green Deal, the European Union has set a goal to increase its domestic raw material extraction by 2030. The EU Critical Raw Materials Act lays out concrete goals for securing and strengthening EU’s domestic supply of critical raw materials. The Critical Raw Materials Act will potentially have significant impacts on land use in Europe’s mineral rich regions. These include northern Fennoscandia which is also home to the Indigenous Sámi inhabiting Sápmi. Extractive projects have multifaceted impacts on local communities and the environment, and mining-related conflicts are on the rise globally. The EU’s goal to increase mining domestically calls for the critical assessment of mining from the perspective of justice. The theoretical framework of this thesis comprises of environmental justice and extractivism. The geographical focus of this thesis is on mining in the northern parts of Fennoscandia – Norway, Sweden and Finland. My research question is: how do different stakeholders from Norway, Sweden and Finland view increasing mining in northern Fennoscandia from an environmental justice perspective? My method is critical discourse analysis consisting of three levels of analysing discourse: textual, interpretative, and critical. I combine perspectives of environmental justice to the study of discourse and apply an environmental justice framework consisting of procedural, recognition and epistemic justice. My data consists of stakeholder feedback submitted to the European Commission’s open online consultation on the Critical Raw Materials Act proposal. The aim is to understand how different stakeholders consider environmental justice aspects as part of increasing extractive activities in northern Fennoscandia. The analysis reveals that most stakeholders agree with the need to increase mining of critical raw materials, and the northernmost Fennoscandia is coined as an important location for mining critical raw materials. Regions emphasize the involvement of local communities and the positive contributions of mining locally. Sámi representatives underline Indigenous rights and strengthening Sámi participation in decision-making. Business actors emphasize the need to accelerate mining permitting processes and to reassess environmental legislation in the context of mining projects. Many stakeholders view technological solutions as a means to conduct mining sustainably, and business actors in particular call for a change of attitudes towards mining. A critical analysis reveals that in terms of environmental justice the discourse is rather limiting; local and traditional knowledge and livelihoods are not thoroughly addressed, and the environment is viewed mainly as a resource.