Strength of evidence: Weak
Consistency with other evidence: High
Plausible Causal Pathway: Yes
This was a qualitative study of members of the Swedish Sámi community, involving six in-depth interviews (three men, three women). Five key themes were identified:
Current impacts
It’s like a battle between ‘David’ (the community) against a ‘Goliath’ (the mining company).
It’s a slow process of challenging the community that takes a lot of power and energy.
It’s about defending and protecting ourselves.
Future impacts
If the reindeer die then everything dies (their whole way of life).
It generates a feeling of powerlessness.
The negative impacts above are juxtaposed gains the economic benefits of the mining activity: jobs, taxes and rural economic growth. Though numbers of jobs have decreased with an increase in automation and taxes are lower than the value of the minerals.
Though an EIA was done they did not have an explicit mechanism for engaging with Sámi communities. Current legislation only sets out the right to information. So, Sámi communities have little influence on the decisions made about what happens on their land.
In addition, though health is a mandatory element of EIAs the focus is still on only the physical and biomedical health impacts and effects: environmental - air, water and soil pollution - and noise and vibration.
The authors state that :
A recent [Australian] systematic review examining health and well-being associated with mining activity in rural communities of high-income countries revealed evidence of an increased prevalence of chronic disease (mental health and cancer), poor self-reported health status, loss of social connectedness, and decreased access to health services in the mining communities.
Mactaggart, F., McDermott, L., Tynan A. and Gericke, C. (2016) ‘Examining health and well‐being outcomes associated with mining activity in rural communities of high‐income countries: a systematic review’, Australian Journal of Rural Health, 24(4), pp.230–237. | Paid Original | | ResearchGate Free Download |
Ket quotes from the interviewees show the mental health and wellbeing effects of unwanted developments.
… you feel a grim hopelessness, you feel, you become depressed, … [after] you have been to these meetings [with other mine actors] … and you go to the reindeer forest, and then you see all of that … then you feel fucking depressed, and you think: ‘am I [going to be] the last generation to do this [reindeer husbandry]?’
It was hard getting that yoke put on you like ‘well but, you anti-miners, you are just egoistic, and the reindeer husbandry does not contribute to society’ and … those sorts of comments. Like, ‘but you have to understand that for the sake of the future, the sake of Jokkmokk’s future we must have a mine’ but I see it as the opposite: for the sake of Jokkmokk’s future we must not have a mine.
Of course, we have, well moments when you feel hopelessness and despair, and you feel inferior, and you feel weak.
There is too much to think of in everyday life. Way too much to think about in everyday life to … to manage to think about it [the potential mine establishment] as well (…) We would have to move (…) It will affect all of us there. So, I do not think of it.
What we love the most is the reindeer. And when we do not have grazing lands, because the mine has possessed it, well, what are we then? Nothing.
Everything from feeling that your way of life disappears, to feeling that my job will disappear, my income will disappear, and that … the possibility of the children working with reindeers if they want to, that goes away, and … just that connection to the place, the mental pressure too—that entails an anxiety, because the nature will go away.
Source: Blåhed, H. and San Sebastián, M. (2021) ‘"If the reindeer die, everything dies”: The mental health of a Sámi community exposed to a mining project in Swedish Sápmi’, International Journal of Circumpolar Health, 80(1)::1935132. doi: 10.1080/22423982.2021.1935132. | Open Access |