Greenlanders support exploiting the sand resulting from melting ice

Aug. 18 () –

A surprisingly large majority of 3 out of 4 Greenlanders supports the extraction and export of the sand left behind by the melting ice cap.

Is the result of a survey among nearly a thousand adults residing throughout the island, where 90% of the population is indigenousconducted by a research team led by McGill University.

A significant proportion want Greenland’s leaders to assess the impact of sand extraction and export on both the environment and the economy. Furthermore, when it comes to who mines the sand, most prefer local participation to foreign collaboration, the study notes, published in the magazine ‘Nature Sustainability’.

Climate change is causing the deposition of significant amounts of sand and gravel along Greenland’s coastlines amid rapidly growing global demand for these resources. This abundance of sand and gravel offers an opportunity for Greenland to become a global exporter of aggregates and meet the growing global demand for these resources, while potentially bringing prosperity to the country. However, until this research, no one had explored public opinion on this option.

“We were quite surprised to learn that there was such a high level of local support for sand mining,” says Mette Bendixen, associate professor in the Department of Geography at McGill University and first author of the recent study in Nature Sustainability. clearly shows how an increasingly globalized Arctic indigenous population wants and must be part of decision-making processes when discussing how Arctic communities can adapt to the accelerating changes in the Arctic“.

Previous mining activities in Greenland have not always included local perspectives early in the exploration process and have often met with fierce local opposition.

Until now, previous research on climate adaptation and the impacts of mining in Greenland has focused mostly on negative externalities and secondary effects, and they have rarely involved the people of Greenland in the decision-making process of large-scale adaptation actions.

This research presents a rare example of how Greenland can benefit from climate change, and how there is strong national support to further investigate this opportunity, the study notes.

Future research will seek to understand the economic, socio-ecological and psychosocial effects of opportunistic climate adaptation actions in the Arctic to guide policy and planning and ensure that cultural values, local knowledge and citizen participation are included in the entire process.