The icy land that’s voted to go green

Jacob Svendsen

The younger generation has taken power in Greenland, said Jacob Svendsen, and they will not sell out their land. In last week’s election, the opposition Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) party easily defeated the governing center-left Siumut party, which had wanted to authorize the mining of uranium and rare-earth minerals—used in cellphones and other high-tech devices. The leftist IA, led by the 34-year-old Múte Bourup Egede, was firmly against the planned mine in southern Greenland, saying it could wreak environmental devastation. IA won some of Greenland’s poorest towns, including Narsaq. And “when one sees the obvious lack of development and jobs” there, it is all the more impressive that

voters said “no” to those promising “large revenues and a bright future in the shadow of the mine.”

The election result should please Washington. The largest shareholder in Greenland Minerals, the Australian company that would run the proposed mine, is Shenghe Resources, which is part-owned by the Chinese government. And given that Beijing already controls 90 percent of the world’s rareearth production, it would suit the Americans to have the project shelved. But there’s still a tussle ahead: IA needs to partner with Naleraq, the party of fishers and trappers, to govern. Forging a “union between modern and traditional” will require “lots of coffee in the coming days.”