It is a warm summer night and the Arctic sun is still high over Repparfjord, a fjord in Arctic Norway. A number of environmentalists and youth activists have been busy occupying and delaying the activities of a local copper mine. The metal extracted here will supply technologies crucial for Europe’s energy transition and security. Among the activists is Isak Greger Eriksen, a member of Norway’s biggest eco-youth organisation, Natur og Ungdom (“Nature and Youth”), who recently discovered his Sámi roots. “As environmentalists, we support a green transition, but we don’t want it to happen at the expense of human rights, Indigenous rights, and nature. So we put our foot down,” he says.  

The encampment is bustling with demonstrators. Some are working on lávvu tents for the activists, built to resemble the Sámi’s temporary dwellings. Others are preparing the protest plans for the coming days. Repparfjord belongs to the Sápmi region, where the Sámi – Indigenous groups who inhabit the Arctic region stretching from northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland to north-eastern Russia – have been practising fishing, hunting, and reindeer husbandry for millennia. But the renewed mining interests in the resource-rich region are clashing with the inhabitants’ long-lasting culture, which is highly dependent on the environment. 

Here, 400 kilometres above the Arctic Circle, the Norwegian Government approved the construction of the Nussir copper mine in 2019, despite strong opposition not only from environmentalists such as Isak but also from Sámi reindeer herders and fishermen. This project has been ongoing since 2009 and has already received tailings permits and mining concessions. In March 2025, it was given special status as an EU strategic project due to its potential to contribute to the bloc’s supply of copper. Nussir is set to be a fully electrified mine with zero emissions.  

On 16 June 2025, just a few days after its first blast ahead of schedule, the project was put on hold until further notice as protesters blocked the site. Activists insisted that the blasting work had taken place beyond the area for which the Nussir mine had acquired permission, an objection that the municipality of Hammerfest also conceded to. However, the project soon received the green light, and tunnel work resumed shortly thereafter. 

The project, managed by the Canadian company Blue Moon Metals, will supply copper essential for electric vehicles, power grids, solar panels, and wind turbines. Norwegian authorities and the mining company argue that Nussir will also bring new opportunities for local youth in an area that is slowly declining and depopulating. However, young activists and local Sámi communities are voicing their opposition. Among the Sámi reindeer herders, fear is growing that such projects will threaten their livelihood, environment, and traditions. “If we lose the calving grounds, we lose the future reindeer calves, and the very basis for continuing reindeer husbandry. So, this is not something we could simply negotiate over,” says Nils Utsi, representative of the affected reindeer herding district Fettja. “It would be almost like negotiating with life as collateral. You cannot seriously discuss your own death.” 

A protester at the activist camp in Repparfjord with Natur og Ungdom. Credits: ©Hannah Thulé.

The fear that mine tailings – the residual material left over from extracting valuable minerals from the ore – will end up in the fjord has also mobilised opposition. Activists claim this waste poses a threat to local fisheries and Sea Sámi fishing traditions. In response to these concerns, environmentalists from Natur og Ungdom have set up an activist camp near the mining site and have been protesting the operations over the last summer. After the company began work in early June, the activists marched up to the mine to block the workers from preparing a tunnel and chained themselves to the machinery to obstruct the operations. Several have been taken into custody by police and fined, but they remain determined to keep up the pressure both on-site and online, and they are asking fellow activists around the world to raise awareness about their cause.  

In Kiruna, an Arctic Swedish town located 300 kilometres south-west of Repparfjord, locals are raising similar concerns around the Per Geijer project, developed by state-owned company LKAB. The project is currently pending a mining concession from the Swedish Mining Inspectorate, which would require additional environmental permits before the mining process can begin. The town’s history is intertwined with the company’s existence, as Kiruna was founded in 1900 to mine the rich iron deposits on the mountains of Luossavaara and Kiirunavaara – lands previously used seasonally for hunting, fishing, and herding by Sámi communities.  

Today, Kiruna’s mining operations are causing ground deformations and subsidence, necessitating a gradual relocation of the city. Recently, Kiruna’s 113-year-old church had to be moved, drawing global attention. While this was celebrated as a historic and festive occasion, a representative of Gabna – a Sámi community in Kiruna – tells us that if the mining project goes ahead, the Gabna reindeer district will be cut in half, making migration paths between important pastures inaccessible. “Nothing is holy anymore. It is yet another sign of how much the people of Kiruna sacrifice for Sweden’s welfare and prosperity,” Lars-Marcus Kuhmunen says. 

The need for a green transition

Local tensions in Kiruna and Repparfjord resemble those in Portugal, Serbia, or the Czech Republic, where other mining projects are being pushed forward in the name of Europe’s energy transition and strategic independence. Metals like copper and lithium are essential for critical infrastructure and renewable technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries for electric vehicles. The International Energy Agency has recently warned that a global copper shortage could occur within a decade. 

Wider geopolitical tensions are also calling the EU to action. As Europe tries to break free from Chinese and Russian energy supply chains, the pressure to locally dig up critical minerals for the green transition is growing. “We are in the middle of a climate crisis and a defence crisis,” says Bard Bergfeld, an environmentalist turned mineral expert and board member at Grangex, a Swedish mining company. “The energy transition is the transformation of society from an economy based on fossil carbon to an economy based on metals. Metals must be mined, and mines can only be developed where the minerals are located.” 

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the energy crisis that followed made Europe acutely aware of its reliance on Russian oil and gas. Brussels has taken steps to reduce its dependence, with Russian gas set to be phased out by 2027 (even though imports increased by 18 per cent in 2024 compared to the previous year). At the same time, Europe remains heavily reliant on China for so-called rare earths – a set of 17 metals essential for green technologies and other strategic industries. As China’s decision to restrict the exports of critical minerals to the US in retaliation for Donald Trump’s tariffs demonstrates, the supply of these metals cannot be taken for granted in a geopolitically tense world.  

In May 2024, the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) entered into force to help member states coordinate national efforts to ensure a steady supply of 34 raw minerals, including rare earths, lithium, and cobalt. These materials are deemed “critical” due to the role they play not only in transitioning away from fossil-fuelled energy systems, but also in ensuring the EU’s long-term security. As well as powering green technologies, they are crucial in the digital, defence and aerospace sectors, among others. With the CRMA, the EU aims to extract 10 per cent, process 40 per cent, and recycle 25 per cent of its strategic minerals by 2030. The bloc needs a fivefold increase in domestic extraction in the next five years to meet the first target.  

In practice, diversifying supply chains and boosting the production of minerals means more mines, processing plants, and recycling plants on European soil. It is for this reason that Brussels has started to fast-track the approval of mining projects. In conjunction with the CRMA, the European Commission officially approved 47 strategic projects in the EU. A list of  13 strategic projects in third countries followed in March 2025. 

Across the Nordics, 10 different projects for the extraction, processing, or recycling of strategic raw materials were selected due to the geological composition of the region and the presence of an established mining industry. The Per Geijer mining project in Kiruna and the Nussir copper mine in Repparfjord are part of this list. The former is expected to contribute 18 per cent of the EU’s domestic supply of rare earths, while the latter is projected to produce around 14.000 tonnes of copper per year. The copper extracted in Repparfjord will be distributed among EU-based offtakers for wind and solar, as well as aircraft and defence technologies. 

This mining rush has come with significant challenges, particularly in the far north. The growing opposition to these strategic projects raises urgent questions about balancing the need for a green transition with the interests and rights of Indigenous peoples. 

 The EU strategic projects approved in March 2025: Nussir and Per Geijer are part of these efforts to develop domestic supply chains. Credits: ©European Commission 

Security policy on Indigenous lands 

The CRMA requires companies to monitor, mitigate, and address risks relating to social and environmental impacts, yet its critics argue that the EU’s push to fast-track and streamline mining projects is hardly compatible with this goal. “This is crafted and constructed as an enabling act: the whole purpose of it is to enable extraction. It is very much driven by economic and strategic interests that are seen as more important than, for example, respect for human rights,” says Annette Löf, a political scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). 

The church of Kiruna was relocated due to the effects of mining beneath the city. Credits: ©Eden Maclachlan.

A recent report by SEI sheds light on the negative impacts mining activities have had on Sámi reindeer herding communities in northern Sweden, despite the EU’s recent attempts to promote human rights due diligence requirements for companies. It concludes that failures of national government regulations, voluntary corporate requirements, and asymmetries in power and resources between communities and companies remain crucial issues. 

As per the guidelines set out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), meaningful and respectful engagement of local communities is a requirement in the extractive sector. The free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of Indigenous groups is also enshrined in international law to ensure that they are involved and have a say in processes that affect them, including the issuance of mining permits. This is based on the human rights to self-determination and non-discrimination. When the European Parliament proposed that the CRMA should include the FPIC of Indigenous peoples, Sweden was one of the countries that opposed this wording, which was then removed. This is part of a broader pattern of retreat from climate commitments and environmental protections by a Swedish Government that has ruled with the support of the far right since the last elections in 2022. 

Article 10 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

A recent paper by the European Environmental Bureau highlighted the lack of transparency relating to these strategic projects as a breach of the Aarhus Convention which the EU is part of. “Decision-making processes concerning land use are not developed to ensure consideration for the human rights of the Sámi,” says Brittis Edman from the Swedish Institute for Human Rights. 

A European Commission spokesperson contacted for this investigation paints a different picture: “The CRMA includes provisions for more streamlined and predictable permitting processes without compromising the EU environmental standards or derogating them. It requires socially responsible practices, respect for human rights and comprehensive and meaningful consultations with local communities, including with Indigenous peoples.” 

In July 2025, four Green members of the European Parliament accused the Commission of secrecy in relation to the strategic projects approved under the CRMA. The MEPs complained they could not get access to environmental impact assessments, and threatened

Towards resource justice  

The scramble for critical metals is just one of many developments disrupting the Sámi’s way of life. Kaisa Syrjänen Schaal, a lawyer and head of the Secretariat of the Sámi Truth Commission tasked by the Swedish government to document oppression of the Sámi people, explains: “There are so many different things that are affecting grazing possibilities: there is forestry, mining, wind farms, hydroelectric power. These all require land, and the options for Sámi people are getting fewer and fewer.”  

With the Arctic region warming four times faster than the global average, the pressures of climate change are threatening Sámi culture. The local environment is changing, making it harder to find food for the herds. While mining projects are developed with the aim of countering climate change, among other things, some believe this is taking a heavier toll on Indigenous communities than is fair. “They do it for the money: the solution to climate change is to consume less, not to establish more mines,” says Nils Utsi. 

Human rights analyst Brittis Edman highlights how this tendency, coupled with the new industrialisation of the North driven by the green transition, has widened the gap between the principles of international law and nationally implemented measures such as environmental and permit assessments. Annette Löf from the Stockholm Environment Institute echoed Edman’s comments, saying, “We already know that Indigenous rights are a sort of symbolic recognition in the Nordics.” She added: “These additional strategic projects, which are expected to be fast-tracked in a system that is already saturated with many other ongoing processes, need to be understood in a broader perspective, in terms of the suffering and the loss of land that has already occurred.” 

“Sometimes the rights of the Sámi are described as privileges. That is not true. Sámi rights are about equalising differences in the enjoyment of rights. At the very heart of Indigenous law is the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ distinct culture and living conditions,” adds Edman. 

The heightened tensions around these projects highlight the complexity of the issue of mining in Sámi lands. Local resistance is seen as obstructing the EU’s path to energy security, while the EU’s projects are also viewed as a threat to the Indigenous way of life in the region. 

The skull of a reindeer in Kiruna, Sweden. Credits: ©Lars-Marcus Kuhmunen. 

Finding a compromise won’t be easy. There is a risk that, by fast-tracking permitting and public consultation processes, the space for constructive debate and negotiation will shrink between decision makers, local communities, companies, and other stakeholders. Reindeer herders already complain they are not being listened to during consultation processes in Kiruna, while in Repparfjord they refuse to talk with developers altogether. “We will need these minerals for the green change, but the question is to what extent – and I don’t really see that debate happening,” says Löf. 

Löf argues that the democratic engagement of Indigenous groups will become increasingly important in overcoming the apparently insurmountable conflicts related to resource extraction on a local scale, as well as ensuring the success of any future development projects in the Nordics. She explains: “The CRMA identifies and recognises a lot of geopolitical tensions, but does not treat internal conflicts, such as mining opposition in many parts of the EU, as ‘true’ conflicts that need addressing in a similar sense; these internal conflicts are rather seen merely as technical challenges.” 

Löf believes that if this continues to be the case, it could potentially lead to further stress and conflicts on a larger scale – between rights holders and states, but also between local communities and the EU. The effects of security policy on Indigenous people in northern Europe also play a part in this issue. As NATO has recently intensified its activities in northern Europe and on the Russian border (particularly with a new air base recently approved in Bodø, Norway), tensions are growing over the militarisation of the Arctic as well as the respect of Sámi rights in the region. 

“Given this wider geopolitical context, Indigenous interests in Norway and Sweden cannot be left out of any discussion around the EU’s energy security,” Löf concludes. Securing a stable and domestic supply of critical minerals has become an important priority for the EU. Still, constructive dialogue must happen to ensure human rights and environmental costs are taken into account when addressing both climate and geopolitical pressures. 

This investigation was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.