Petteri Vaara criticized the government's decision to grant a 150 million euro tax support to Anglo American's subsidiary, Sakati, through Business Finland. According to him, the value of the metal deposits located in Viiankiaapa in Sodankylä, a Natura 2000 area, was tens of billions of euros: about 15 billion euros for copper and over ten billion euros for nickel, gold, and palladium. Vaara believed that the mining company would receive the extracted metals and the vast majority of the economic benefits, while the risks of the project would remain with nature and taxpayers. Vaara wrote that the state was preparing and partly funding mining projects but handed the responsibility for leading them to multinational companies. He also criticized the National Coalition Party member of parliament, Pia Kauma, who stated that protected nature calmed and comforted people, but metals were needed for batteries and electrical cables. Vaara mentioned that Sakati had met with several ministers, their assistants, and members of parliament and had used consultants from the law firm Borenius. Vaara claimed that 79 percent of Finns opposed mining in nature conservation areas. According to him, the government was pushing for the project to gain the status of an EU strategic raw materials initiative to expedite the permitting process. He also criticized Anglo American's plans to purchase old-growth forests in Inari and to restore drained wetlands to replace Viiankiaapa. Vaara referred to a statement from the Permit and Supervision Agency, which indicated that the actions proposed by the company were insufficient to mitigate the environmental harm of the project as required by the nature directive. https://t.co/spQ6nEoAhG #Suomi #Luonto #Kaivosteollisuus (translated)
