Mining, a threat to reindeer herding?

  • Midnight sun over the enclosure where the reindeer are gathered as the work on marking the calves continues into the night. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • Jukka Similä is a Law Research Professor with the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi. His research includes natural resources law, environmental protection and Arctic policy. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • Pirita Näkkäläjärvi is Member of the Sámi Parliament and former editor of Yle’s Sámi-language news. Photo: Ville-Riiko Fofonoff / Sámi Parliament in Finland
  • Frederic Hauge is founder of the Bellona Foundation. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • Minna Näkkäläjärvi wants a future without mining inside the grazing land and migration routes of the reindeer in the Enontekiö municipality. She has stated a petition against the mining and collected thousands of signatures in just a few weeks. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • Electric car charger at Hotel Hullu Poro (Crazy Reindeer) in Levi, northern Finland. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • Boliden Kevitsa near Sodankylä in Lapland is located south of the core Sámi area. Behind this gate is one of the biggest open-pit mines in Finland. The main products are nickel and copper concentrate and in addition to this also significant amounts of platinum, palladium, gold and cobolt. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • The herders stay in these cabins on the banks of Lake Salvasjärvi in the Tarvantovaara wilderness area, some 230 km north of the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lapland. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • Reindeer in the Ergon/Erkuna siida in the Käsivarsi reindeer-herding cooperative are gathered in the enclosure when the calves are to be marked. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • Cabins by Lake Salvasjärvi, some 230 km north of the Arctic Circle in Finland. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • The black dots in the skies are not the photographer's dirty lens. They are all hungry mosquitoes. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • Minna Näkkäläjärvi and Tuomas Siilasjoki say mining could cause contamination to the waterways. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • Cloudberry flowers. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • Norway-Finland border fence. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
  • View towards the Norwegian municipality of Kautokeino from the mountain plateau in the Tarvantovaara wilderness area on the Finnish side of the border. Photo: Thomas Nilsen