NOAHNOAH, the Danish member of Friends of the Earth (Foe), and member of NTW, has just release the following press released advocating together with the green NGO Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and Urani Naamik-Nuuk that “Mining Companies In Greenland Should Be Better Controlled”.
To know more about the Institutional mechanisms in Greenland to facilitate transparency and public participation in radioactive waste management in general, Niels Henrik Hooge, member of Nuclear Transparency Watch and NOAH Friends of the Earth Denmark, wrote an article about it in the EURAD deliverable D9.17 ROUTES – Implementation of the ROUTES ICS action plan second phase (p. 91).
This article was also presented orally in the frame of a webinar series (click here to watch).
Nuuk, Copenhagen and Melbourne, June 9, 2025
PRESS RELEASE
Mining Companies In Greenland Should Be Better Controlled
On May 29, the owner of the large Kuannersuit/Kvanefjeld uranium and rare earths mining project, Energy Transition Minerals (ETM), held its annual general meeting in Melbourne, Australia. The mining company has sued the Danish and Greenlandic governments for 10 billion EUR – equivalent to almost four times Greenland’s GDP – which is likely to make the case the largest in the history of the Danish Realm.
“For more than ten years, ETM has tried to force through a mining project that few residents in Greenland want,” says Erik Jensen, chairman of the URANI? NAAMIK / The No To Uranium Association in Nuuk. “The general meeting shows that the mining company has learned nothing and has no respect for the local population. Apparently, ETM still spares no effort to promote its project, even though it has been illegal for four years.”
One of the participants in the general meeting was Dave Sweeney from the green NGO Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), who ensured that shareholders could ask questions of ETM’s management. His briefing from the meeting demonstrates that ETM does not deny that Julie Bishop, a former Australian foreign minister, who has been hired as a strategic advisor to promote the Kuannersuit/Kvanefjeld mining project, may be liaising with the Trump administration. She is already accused of double play in Myanmar, where she is both a UN special envoy and a lobbyist for Chinese mining companies. 290 environmental organisations have signed an open letter to the UN Secretary-General, calling for an investigation into the conflict of interest.
“The Australian uranium sector has over-promised and under delivered for decades”, says ACF nuclear analyst Dave Sweeney. “This history of leaks, damage and division has seen sustained and often successful community resistance to uranium mining. We do not want Australian mining companies seeking to ignore or override community concerns in Greenland. People must have a right to choose their future and to say no to mining and ETM and other companies must listen”.
Since the lifting of the ban on uranium mining in 2013 which ETM pushed through by threatening the Greenland government that it would not extract rare earths in Kuannersuit if uranium could not be mined, the company has only caused problems. This could have been prevented twelve years ago when questions were raised in the Danish and the Greenlandic parliaments about, among other things, the ETM ownership group’s alleged connection to organized crime in Australia.
“The fact that dubious mining companies can gain access to license areas is still a problem,” says Palle Bendsen from NOAH Friends of the Earth Denmark. “Together with three European and two Australian environmental organizations, NOAH complained to Nasdaq in late 2024 about the Australian-American mining company Critical Metals Corp. The company is on its way to take over Tanbreez Mining Greenland A/S, which owns the large Kringlerne/Killavaat Alannguat mining project in South Greenland. The deposit is reportedly the largest occurrence of rare earths in the world. Our complaint documents that Critical Metals Corp has misled the public, the authorities, and current and possibly future shareholders in at least twelve cases.”
After Donald Trump threatened to annex Greenland, the more than hundred large-scale license areas pose not only a serious environmental, but also a security problem. Together, they cover a fifth of Greenland’s habitable areas and instead of occupying the country with military means, Trump-supporters can buy it up piece by piece. For example, the American investment company GreenMet has 10 billion USD at its disposal for investments in Greenland. The company’s management includes a former Senior Advisor to the Director of National Intelligence and National Security Special Operations Advisor with a history as a Commander of a Special Operations Detachment in Afghanistan, a former highly decorated Special Forces Weapons Sergeant with more than 10 years of experience in special operations, an ex-CIA operative, and a former Director of Oval Office Operations, who used to be head of security for the Trump Organisation, while serving as Donald Trump’s personal bodyguard.
“With only a handful of employees, the Greenlandic Department of Mineral Resources has no chance of controlling the many mining areas, let alone who owns the companies that possess the licenses,” says Niels Henrik Hooge from NOAH Friends of the Earth Denmark. “Based on the experience with ETM, the Department can’t count on much support from the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Justice in Denmark, which together with the Greenlandic authorities are responsible for security and law enforcement in Greenland. Both the Greenlandic population and Greenlandic politicians want a closer relationship with the EU, so perhaps Denmark could use its upcoming EU Presidency to promote Greenlandic interests. Simultaneously, a moratorium on large-scale mining could be introduced for the next four years in order to protect the environment and avoid unwanted interference from the outside.”
Australian Conservation Foundation’s briefing on ETM’s annual general meeting
Regarding Energy Transition Minerals, etc., see: Mariane Paviasen and others, Greenland Is Under Attack, Nuclear Monitor #917, June 28, 2024, p. 8-12
For more information, contact:
URANI? NAAMIK / The No To Uranium Association in Nuuk: Erik Jensen, Tel.: +299 496790, E-mail: erikjensen1967(at)icloud.com
NOAH Friends of the Earth Denmark: Niels Henrik Hooge, Tel.: +45 21 83 79 94, E-mail: nielshenrik(at)noah.dk and Palle Bendsen, Tel.: +45 30 13 76 95, E-mail: pnb(at)ydun.net
Australian Conservation Foundation: Dave Sweeney, Tel.: +61 (0)408 317 812, E-mail: dave.sweeney(at)acf.org.au
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