Common and private good: experiences of mining and environmental justice in rural areas

Abstract

The Green Transition and geopolitical objectives increase the pressure to search for and produce critical minerals. This pressure is increasingly directed at rural areas, leading to increasing opposition to mining and mineral exploration. The contradiction between global and national goals and experiences at the local level has put the question of justice in the Green Transition and related mining into the center. In this article, we examine the experiences of justice in the context of the use of natural resources in rural areas with a specific focus on mining in three Finnish municipalities: Heinävesi, Kaustinen, and Sodankylä. We open a discussion about what environmental justice means from the perspective of rural Finland. The article is based on the quantitative, qualitative, and map results of an online survey conducted at the beginning of 2023. The experiences of justice related to mining were condensed around experienced or feared environmental and water body impacts, as well as around the recognition of local knowledge and values attached to nature and the environment. Based on the results, we argue that perceived justice plays a key role in determining the local level's stance towards green transition mining in rural areas.