WHERE IS KVALSUND HEADINg?SpEcULAtIoNS AboUt tHE RESoURcES AND tHE fUtURE of tHE mUNIcIpALIty

by guðrún Lilja Jónsdóttir

Kvalsund municipality is in west Finmark, the northern most county in Norway. There is abundance of resources like wild salmon in the river and fish in the fjord, the pure nature, deposits rich of mineral and its culture. About thousand people live in Kvalsund and there is a community of Sámi people that are the Arctic indigenous people. Some of them are reindeer herders that travel with their herds through Kvalsund for grazing and calving. At one of the pasture areas in Kvalsund, Nussir ASA mining company has plans to mine in rich copper deposits that have been found. By that reasons reindeer herders are concerned. They are afraid the activity will scare the animals away or the herds can be mixed and it will narrow their pastures. Nussir ASA´s mining activities are at large scale and the impact are large and diverse.

The main elements likely to be affected are marine environment, bottom fau-na, water chemistry, baseline, impacts associated seafill departure, impacts on anadromous salmonids, marine fish, reindeer, outdoor activities, biodiversity, cultural heritage, on land, cultural heritage in the sea, landscape and natural areas and impact on society. By that reasons many people and associations are involved and it is certainly problematic having everyone satisfied with such a major development project. The heaviest conflicts are of the proposed sea fill derived from waste of the mine. Nussir ASA plans to release the waste into the bottom of Repparfjord. Such a sea fill will cause acute death in the bottom area. The waste is toxic and contains heavy metals. That will have negative impacts on the life in the fjord and the river. By that reasons spokesmen for marine fish, water chemistry and wild salmon are highly against the mine

Copper mine in Nussir is not the only big project planned in Kvalsund munic-ipality. Windmill Park south of the mining area is also on the agenda. Those windmills will produce the electricity for among the activity in Nussir ASA mine. Windmills contains high levels of copper and are said produce “green energy”. They propose windmill park to produce the among energy to drive the mine. Then again the mine is producing to make the material for the

windmills. Windmill Park consist numbers of windmills and enormous power lines, the Park will take enormous area of land and change the appearance of it. The power lines are supposed to be larger than normal and the reindeer herders worry the reindeers will avoid the power lines and that also narrows the pastures and scares the reindeers away.

The municipality is always responsible for the future development in Kvalsund and what they decide to construct today will have environmental impacts that some will leave permanent footprints. Then what will be Kvalsund´s future ap-pearance? That are consequential decision they must take. They need to make rational decisions. It seems that the municipality has an intensity to expand alot. It can be comprehensible, it is need for jobs and flow into the society and they have that enormous amount of minerals in their ground worth alot of money but is it worth the other resources that might get harmed?

These proposed projects will leave permanent footprints, either large or small. So I wonder if these big projects will become reality is the municipality willing to risk their most valuable elements like the fish in the sea, salmon in the river, reindeer herds, the current landscape, beautiful nature, the culture and more that all can be impacted.

So I wonder where Kvalsund is heading, how it will appear in the future. I think they must take rational decisions.

WHERE IS KVALSUND HEADINg?

WHERE ARE tHEy HEADINg?

tHE mUNIcIpALIty of KVALSUND SHoULD tAKE RAtIoNAL DEcISIoNS...

I am interesting in how people see Kvalsund and what they think is valueble there. That is why I started to look at photographs from Kvalsund and specu-late what is photographed and why.

What is photographed?By looking at random photographs from Kvalsund, the subjects might reflect what people experience and think about Kvalsund. What people interest and find special. Maby those elements are exactly the most valuable in Kvalsund.Why do people in general photograph? I searched for photographers answer and the bottom line was; to connect with the nature and to see the beauty of the world. In the following images Kvalsund is seen through the eyes of pho-tographers.

Most of the pictures are taken of people enjoying in Kvalsund, the beautiful nature, the fresh salmon in the river, reindeers and the Sámi herders.

This could be a small guide for Kvalsund municipality when taking decisions for future!

tHE VALUE of KVALSUND?