On the Mast: To Save the Planet, Do Reindeer have to Die?

Atop the Mast: the flag of the Sami people.

On the Yardarm: the flags of Sweden, potentially a new source of rare earth minerals, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

One of the major geopolitical battles today is over rare earth minerals, such as lithium, cadmium and nickel. They are crucial in efforts to move beyond the fossil-fuel economy, as they possess unique magnetic, luminescent, and catalytic properties needed to make strong permanent magnets that drive electric motors. Wind turbines use similar technology that also requires rare earth minerals.

As countries commit to reducing carbon emissions, the need for these minerals grows. And the need is growing fast because of amazing progress in the mass production of electric vehicles (EVs). Almost 2,000,000 EVs have been sold in U.S. alone, and sales are up 28 percent this year.

About 95 percent of the EV cars sold last year were produced in China, which holds about 34 percent of global reserves of rare earth minerals but accounts for 59 percent of production and 85 percent of refining capacity. In Europe especially, leaders are uneasy about China potentially leveraging their minerals for control of the green economy and for political or even military advantage.

Europe therefore celebrated the recent discovery of a major source (over one million tons) of rare earth minerals in Kiruna, Sweden. But there’s a major problem with the development of the Kiruna mining region. The mining site is just 18 miles from the Arctic Circle, in the middle of a major migration route for reindeer herds central to the culture of the Sami people.

The Sami are spread across Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. Their languages and culture are deeply linked to their reindeer herds, the land, and their way of life. The reindeer are calm creatures that travel hundreds of miles each year between their summer and winter grazing grounds.  The Sami feel they have lived a green lifestyle for millennia, as their life is “a way of using land that is by definition green because we are actually letting the animals graze and find food for themselves in their surroundings,”says Karin Niia, a spokesperson for one of the reindeer communities.

To access the winter grazing lands they have been using for hundreds of years, the Sami herders have to move from one side of Kiruna to the other. However, the mine and the growing town community of miners and the associated railways, roads and infrastructure for the industry cut across the Sami and reindeers’ historic routes, and have left the Sami with just a small strip of land, roughly a mile wide, for the reindeer herd to migrate through. Sami communities are pushing back with legal challenges that have stalled major mining projects and spooked investors.

The jury is out – would you cast your vote for the reindeer or those trying to reduce Europe’s dependence on fossil fuels? I recommend this 20-minute video on the perspective of the Sami community, and the clash between maintaining their traditional culture and life, on the one hand, and the need for the world to tackle climate change.

Another major producer of rare earth metals is the Congo, which produces 60 percent of the world’s cobalt, a crucial component for making batteries used in electric vehicles and mobile phones. Reindeer are not an issue in the Congo, but rather the deaths of child laborers used in the cobalt mines. The road to a green future is paved with significant challenges and tradeoffs.