Territories of Contention: The Importance of Project Location in Mining-Related Disputes in Finland from the Geosystem Services Perspective

Abstract

Geosystem services produced by geological processes are the abiotic equivalents of ecosystem services. Geosystems also contribute to satisfying human needs and produce welfare in the form of, e.g., mineral deposits, landscapes for recreation and tourism, and habitats for rare species that require protection. Geosystems are inherently linked to ecosystems, which causes overlap between provided services. This overlap may in turn cause conflicts over land-use needs and interests. Such controversies can be manifested as mining and mineral exploration disputes (MMEDs). Six MMEDs from Finland were selected for a closer examination. The MMEDs are described and spatially analyzed from the geosystem services perspective. The main causes for the examined MMEDs are land-use issues, i.e., the location of a project in a sensitive context (a protected area (PA), tourism destination, reindeer herding area, or lake area with vacation homes), and/or association with uranium. There have been attempts to block some of the projects through land-use planning by expanding PAs or excluding mining from the municipality. Conversely, one of the projects is an example of the safeguarding of mineral deposits by province-level land-use planning. A more comprehensive consideration of geosystem services by land-use planning may help to accommodate and reconciliate diverse interests and alleviate disputes.

Mining and Mineral Exploration Projects within the Natura 2000 Area: Case Studies from Northern Finland

“…Eerola [8] studied the Rompas-Rajapalot and Sakatti project holders' online communication based on their low-impact technologies (LIMETs) and topics related to SLO/social license to explore (SLE). Eerola [2] identified both projects as DMEMs and their issues were spatially analyzed from a geosystem service perspective by Eerola [9]. This article describes these two characteristic cases as examples of important mining and mineral exploration projects related to Natura 2000 areas in northern Finland, especially on strategies adopted by involved companies because of operations in such sensitive contexts and their challenged SLO/SLE situations.…”

“…The Rompas-Rajapalot and Sakatti projects, and their holders, new low-impact mineral exploration technologies (LIMETs), issues/context, and contentious actors. The data are taken from[2,8,9]. FANC = the Finnish Association for Natural Conservation.…”