Remediating Mining Landscapes
2022 (English)In: Resource Extraction and Arctic Communities: The New Extractivist Paradigm, Cambridge University Press (CUP) , 2022, p. 185-205Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]
This chapter explores mining as a social process of continuous change into the future. Following new environmental legislation, environmental remediation and re-wilding are becoming practices of restoring landscapes altered by extraction. These are also political, social, and cultural processes involving multiple actors making choices. Remediation and re-wilding, still in an exploratory stage in the Arctic, demonstrate the entangled nature of sustainability. In order for extraction to become “sustainable” it is essential that governance has a focus on what is left when peak extraction is passed. If that is done in a hasty and irresponsible manner it will take a long time to heal “landscape scars” and other wounds that extraction has brought. The chapter focuses on the environmental remediation of two former mining sites – the Nautanen mine in Norrbotten in Sweden and the Lunckefjell mine and Sveagruvan on Svalbard – with very different contexts. At Lunckefjell, the wider framework was to safeguard Norwegian sovereignty on Svalbard. At Nautanen, remediation was limited to an attempt to make a profit from mining waste and eventually failed because of a conflict over responsibility.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Cambridge University Press (CUP) , 2022. p. 185-205
Keywords [en]
Abandoned mines, Arctic, Geopoltics, Industrial heritage, Mine waste, Transformation
National Category
Technology and Environmental History Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-384852DOI: 10.1017/9781009110044.015Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105023603216OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-384852DiVA, id: diva2:2084515
Note
Part of ISBN 9781009110044, 9781009100236
QC 20260706
2026-07-062026-07-062026-07-06Bibliographically approved