NERI Technical report No. 524: Minreal resource activities and nature/environment conservation interests in Greenland. Boertmann, D. 2005. 114 pp.

 

Summary

 

This report describes the potential conflicts between nature and environmental conservation interests and the field activities of petroleum and minerals projects in Greenland. It gives an overview of these conflicts and how they can be solved in a way that may satisfy both sides of the conflict.

 

The background is the general political agreement that development of petroleum and mineral resources shall be a vital part of Greenland economy and that it shall be carried out in a responsible way related to health, safety and environment.

 

Nature conservation and environmental regulation in relation to petroleum and mineral activities Greenland are regulated by the Minerals Act.

 

The relevant paragraphs of this act are in general in agreement with the two Greenlandic acts regarding nature conservation and environment regulation.

 

According the Nature Conservation Act twelve areas in Greenland are protected, thirteen areas are designated as seabird breeding sanctuaries and activities are regulated near and at seabird breeding colonies in the breeding season. The largest of the nature conservation areas is the National Park of North and East Greenland. Generally, activities related to mineral and petroleum exploration and exploitation are allowed in the nature protected areas and regarding nature and environment protection measures they are regulated by the Minerals Act.

 

Two of these protected areas are also protected by international agreements: The National Park is an UNESCO Man & Biosphere Reserve and the Ilulissat Icefjord is an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Further eleven areas are designated according to the Ramsar-convention, although not yet implemented in the national legislation.

 

Greenland or Denmark (on behalf of Greenland) has ratified international conventions regarding environmental issues: Kyoto, MARPOL, OSPAR, London are the most important. The regulations according to these conventions are more or less implemented in national Greenland legislation and in the approval procedures maintained by the Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum of the Greenland Home Rule (guidelines, regulations, standard terms, model licences etc.)

 

Conflicts with petroleum and mineral activities depend naturally of extent and duration. In general, impacts on nature and environment from prospecting and exploration activities will be of temporary and reversible character, and can be mitigated by strict regulation based on thorough biological background knowledge from the area in focus.

 

Exploitation activities will usually give much more persistent conflicts with nature and environmental conservation interest. Impacts on animal population level or on biodiversity may be the result and they have the potential to be of a irreversible kind. However, depending of the type of the activity, impacts may be localised to limited areas. Many of these conflicts may be minimised to acceptable levels by careful authority regulation. Impacts from exploitation activities depend on the extend. For example will the impacts on nature and environment from a small gold mine – like Nalunaq in South Greenland, recently opened – be limited and rather simple, while impact from a large oil field have the potential to be much more complicated, extensive and cumulative.

 

The most serious conflicts will arise if a large marine oilspill reach the Greenland coast. Impacts have the potential to be long-lasting and may affect even on ecosystem-level. Oilspill impacts are difficult to mitigate and combat, when the accident has occurred. It is therefore very important to reduce the risk of oilspills for example by the Health-Safety-Environment-efforts of the companies.

 

It is proposed that petroleum and mineral activities in areas with a special demand for nature protection (areas protected according to national law, included by international agreements or with important nature conservation interests) shall be regulated based on thorough background studies of the environment, based on environmental impact assessments of the activities through the whole life cycle and facilitated by a computerised GIS-management tool, which integrates the biological information and the knowledge on the impacts of the specific activities.

 

Management of the biological conservation interests should be carried out from a ‘hot-spot’ model, where the important and sensitive sites are surrounded by a buffer zone defined by the reaction pattern to disturbance of the actual taxa to be protected. Such a buffer zone will protect the hot-spot from disturbance from mineral related activities. In case of temporal variation of the occurrence of the taxon in focus, activities may be carried out during the periods when it is absent, as for example in winter – provided that the habitat is not destroyed.

 

It is unusual - in an international context - that petroleum and mineral activities are possible within the National Park of North and East Greenland. This area is also a Man & Biosphere Reserve, which therefore should be divided into three different types of management zones. Within two of these zones petroleum and mineral activities may be possible under some restrictions. This zonation is not yet applied in the National Park. The two different protection regimes do not match, and the possibility for petroleum and mineral activities is moreover not in agreement with the international definition (IUCN) of an national park, hence there is demand for clarification of the protection status of the area today called the National Park of North and East Greenland.

 

Full report in pdf format (2,282 kB).

Appendix in pdf format (7,914 kB).