The largest mineral deposit on the rare earth in Europe is directly on the path of an old reindeer migration route to 124 miles above the Arctic Circle

An expanding iron polished mine and a mineral deposit of the earth rare fragment the earth and modify the old paths of reindeer migration. But with the warming of the Arctic four times faster than the rest of the planet, breeders say they need more geographic flexibility, no less, to ensure the survival of animals.

If a mine is established at the mineral deposit of the rare land called per geijer, that Sweden announces the largest, Kuhmunen, the largest, said that it could completely cut the migration tracks used by the village of Sami de Gabna.

It would be the end of the Aboriginal lifestyle for Kuhmunen, his children and their compatriots from Renne Sami, he said, in this distant corner of Sweden about 200 kilometers (124 miles) above the Arctic Circle.

“The reindeer is the fundamental basis of Sami culture in Sweden,” said Kuhmunen. “Everything is founded around reindeer: food, language, knowledge of mountains. Everything is founded around the breeding of reindeer. If this ceases to exist, the SAMI culture will also cease to exist. ”

Renne breeders Sami follow traditions of tradition

Sami breeders descend from a formerly nomadic people dispersed in a region extending over the north of northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and the northwest corner of Russia. Until the 1960s, the members of this indigenous minority were discouraged from Rennes breeding, and the Church and the State suppressed their language and their culture.

In Sweden alone, there are at least 20,000 people with Sami inheritance, although an official count does not exist because an egg -based census is contrary to the law. Today, a village of Sami called a large -by is a commercial entity dictated by the State, which determines the number of semi -domestic reindeer that each village can have and where they can wander.

“This is more and more a problem to have a kind of sustainable reindeer farming and be able to have reindeer to survive Arctic winter until next year,” said Stefan Mikaelsson, member of the Sami Parliament.

In the village of Gabna, Kuhmunen supervises around 2,500 to 3,000 Rennes and 15 to 20 breeders. Their families, some 150 people in total, depend on the results of the company.

Even before the discovery of the deposit by Geijer, they had to face the expanding imprint of Kiirunavaara. The largest underground mine in the world, of pure, forced the village breeders to direct their reindeer by a longer and more difficult migration route.

Mining could reduce dependence on China but injure sami breeders

Swedish officials and LKAB, the state mining company, claim that the mine proposed by Geijer could reduce the dependence of Europe to China for the minerals of the rare land. LKAB hopes to start operating there in the 2030s.

In addition to being essential to many types of consumption technologies, including mobile phones, hard drives and electric and hybrid vehicles, the minerals of the rare land are also considered crucial to keep the economy from fossil fuels towards electricity and renewable energies.

But if work on Geijer is progressing, Kuhmunen said that there would be no other routes for Gabna breeders to take the reindeer to the east of the mountains in summer to pastures full of lichens rich in nutrients in winter.

The village will dispute the mine in court, but Kuhmunen said it was not optimistic.

“It is really difficult to fight a mine. They have all the resources, they have all the means. They have money. We don’t have that,” said Kuhmunen. “We only have our will to exist. To pass these pasture lands to our children. “

Darren Wilson, the main vice-president of LKAB special products, said the mining company was looking for solutions to help Sami breeders, although it does not speculate on what they might be.

“There are potential things that we can do and we can explore and we must continue to engage,” he said. “But I do not underestimate the challenge of doing it.”

The impact of climate change on reindeer breeding

Climate change is wreaking havoc on the traditional breeding of SAMI reindeer.

Global warming brought rain instead of snow during the winter in Swedish Lapland. The freezing rain then imprisoned the lichen under a thick layer of ice where the hungry reindeers cannot reach food, according to Anna Skarin, expert in Rennes farming and Swedish professor from the University of Agricultural Sciences.

In summer, mountain temperatures reached 30 degrees Celsius (86 fahrenheit) and left overheated reindeer and unable to graze enough to gain the necessary weight to support them in winter.

Some in Sweden suggest putting the reindeer on trucks to transport them between the pasture land if the mine by Geijer is built. But Skarin said that it was not possible because the animals eat in motion and that the relocation would refuse them food to be grazed by walking from one area to another.

“So, you are both removed the migration path that they have traditionally used on hundreds and thousands of years,” she said, “and you would also take away this fodder resource that they should have used during this period.”

For Kuhmunen, this would also mean that the end of SAMI traditions transmitted by generations of shepherds of Rennes on this land.

“How can you tell your people that what we are doing now, will cease to exist in the near future?” He said.

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Seven from Christiro is Kirus, in Sweden, contributed to this report.

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