Unique Natura 2000 protected aapa mire Viiankiaapa in Finnish Lapland is threatened.
The Mining company Anglo American wants to open a huge mine there, and they say the damages can be ecologically compensated.
How can you replace an irreplaceable wetland?
Learn more about the Viiankiaapa conflict:
The Finnish Minister of Climate and the Environment Kai Mykkänen destroes the Ministry of the Environment.
The Sierilä hydro power plant planned by the Kemijoki Ltd would have dammed and drowned the last free-flowing main channel of Kemijoki River in the Northern Finland. The dam project was canceled thanks to the long struggle of the NGOs and local activists!
Background info:
Cartoon from 2017:
The Kemijoki River in Northern Finland was once maybe the best salmon river in Europe.
The river was dammed after the World War II, and no fish passages were built, so the local salmon population was lost.
Kemijoki Ltd has now 16 hydro power plants in the Kemijoki River. The company wants to build one more with no fish passages. The planned Sierilä dam would drown the last free-flowing part of the river’s main channel under the dam reservoir.
The fisheries authorities have started a legal process requiring the power stations to build fish passages across all dams and to restore breeding areas.
The big power companies, PVO Ltd and Kemijoki Ltd (the latter with it’s owners Fortum, UPM, Helen etc.) oppose this process fiercely.
