Environmental impacts of iron-ore mine Hannukainen based on the officials' perspective

Abstract

The aim of the final thesis was to research how the Finnish officials see and experience the environmental impacts of mines, and more specially the Hannukainen mine. The results from the research interviews were compared with the statements from the Hannukainen mine environmental impact assessment and mining legislation. The interviews on the officials’ perspective still remains as the most important research tool and comparison with the statements and legislation´s role was to give the officials perspectives something to compare them with. In the framework of the topic also the following themes were discussed: the officials´ understanding on their roles and resources in their work, how they respond to the media accusations concerning environmental hazards and mines, and how they see the today’s mining know-how and politics.

The method was theme interview structured according to different themes for conversation. The target group of the interviews was the officials that work with the environment permissions, mining permissions and monitoring of those permissions. In practice the officials are from Center for Economic Development (ELY), Finnish Safety and Chemical agency (Tukes) and Regional State Administrative Agencies (AVI).

According to the interviews the officials see that the Hannukainen mining project is challenging project in sensitive and complex environment. According to the EIA report statements the operator has not yet demonstrated in the process that it is fully aware of these conditions. According to the officials in Tukes, iron ore mining itself should be well-know and very conventional process that should not bring any surprises if best environmental practices are used as the Environmental Protection Act (§4) requires. This research also emphasized the lack of resources in the agencies and the importance of the mining company´s good understanding of its operations, conditions and surrounding environment. Also resent discussion of bias problems in the media has difficult the officials´ working on the changing field of mining.