I went digging into the permitting process for Swedish mining in greater detail.
There is an informative publication here from the journal "Land Use Policy" dated August 2020. I am not sure if it ever made it to these boards, I was not following HC-Talga until about march of this year. I have not found it with advanced search. I hyperlink the paper: here. This document was written by pro-Sami rights academics in various Swedish universities; Uppsala, Lulea, and Stockholm. This document argues from the point of view that Sami indigenous rights are not respected by a pro-mining swedish government, the flip side from the perspective of this board in general. Some highlights:
1. Regarding the environmental permit: " Significantly, the Environmental Code is not designed to hinder environmentally hazardous activities but, rather, to mitigate and manage potentially significant negative impacts on the environment and human health from such activities (Michanek and Zetterberg, 2017, p. 256). A mining or related activity can only be denied if the site is exceptionally unsuitable (ch. 2 s. 6), if the environmental and/or health impacts would be unacceptably severe (ch. 2 s. 9), or if there would be potentially significant harm to a Natura 2000 area near to the mine."
2.Regarding the mining concession: "Prior to the permit decision, the Mining Inspector consults the County Administrative Board (ch. 8 s. 1; Prop., 1988/89:92, p. 68). The County Administrative Board has an important function to coordinate and safeguard Swedish State interests regarding the land and resource management interests in the region, including reindeer herding (Prop., 1997/98:45 Part II, p. 29). If the Mining Inspector and the County Administrative Board disagree on the balancing of public interests relevant to the location, the permit decision is, instead, made by the Swedish Government (ch. 8 s. 2)
"Government decisions can only be appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court on technical points of law.33"
" The basic prerequisites for obtaining a concession are rather straightforward; if certain conditions regarding the value of and access to the mineral deposit are met, then the Mining Inspector must grant a concession (ch. 4 s. 2; Bäckström, 2015, p. 185).30 There is, thus, a presupposed bias in the Swedish Minerals Act that favour the granting of a mining concession."
3. Sami herding conclusion to mining: "When balancing opposing land-uses concerning the mining concession, Sami reindeer herding is treated as an “industry” and as a public interest, but not as a Sami property right; this factor significantly weakens Sami reindeer herding status vis-à-vis mining. Not surprisingly, we are yet to see a case where, at the final instance, the permitting process in Sweden rejects a mine on the grounds of incompatibility with reindeer herding."
The more recurrent followers of HC Talga will be familiar with these concerns, and how they fit in to the story. The permit story looks pretty good to me. My own brief comments on the above points:
1, I dont see anything in the Golder environmental impact report that seems disqualifying to human or natural health. 2, we have every indication that the SGU is on Talga's side for mining graphite, cobalt, and other rare earth minerals. Because Talga's deposits are designated a national interest, the mining inspectorate has to be on our side. Even if the Norrbotten County Administrative Board is dead set against Talga, something we have no reason to suspect, the Swedish Government can overrule them. Bind this together with the current prime minister and all major political parties, Social Democrat or Conservative, indicating that green revolution mining needs to happen, and things look pretty good to me. 3, Mark Thompson has made earnest concessions to the Sami herding community by only mining in summer months. Even if this were not considered enough by the Sami, it seems the government will side with the mining company if the mining claim is a declared national interest. Talga's is.
One thing not addressed by the document is the ability of anti-mining interests to slow down the permitting process. These things take 10+ years, and yet this document complains about a "fast-track for mining interests", which I find laughable.
Hopefully this addresses some of the board's lingering concerns.
(20min delay)