Hands off our island!

World Powers Eying Up Greenland's Mineral Wealth Jealously

Nuuk, Sunday, 

For Greenland's fledgling independence movement, the good news is that President Donald Trump (75) is no longer trying to buy it. The bad news is, Greenland is melting rapidly and by 2019 had already lost 160 billion tonnes of ice. 

While there is certainly lots of ice still there, the longer-term effects are far-reaching. Greenland is already the biggest contributor to worldwide sea-level rise, and in a recent discovery, scientists discovered a melting ice sheet was releasing huge amounts of mercury into the fjords.

Trump's interest in the "land of the Kalaallit" is just the latest indication of the island's increasing geopolitical importance. Greenland's hidden mineral wealth, rich deposits of gold, silver - and also that most modern precious metal - uranium, has even caught the eye of China.

It is only in the last decade that the Middle Kingdom has taken an interest in Greenland. In 2011, the island’s minister for industry and natural resources paid China a visit, being welcomed by the vice-premier. While for the Red Dragon the focus is on natural resources, Greenland is increasingly dependent on its ability to export to the Sleeping Giant.

But in an extraordinary electoral turnaround, Greenlanders elected the left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit party in a snap vote in April. Under Múte Bourup Egede (34), Ataqatigiit favors Greenlandic independence and pledges to oppose a large rare-earth mining project.

Greenlanders are predominantly Inuit. 

However, Denmark's claim today to the island stems from Erik the Red's colony in 985 which led to him acquiring the title of paramount chieftain of Greenland. Viking control of Greenland continued until 1261 when the Kingdom of Norway claimed control until the Norse settlements vanished during the 15th century leaving the Inuits as the sole occupants of the island despite European powers continuing to claim possession.

---

Poisonous legacy of America's 'Project Iceworm'

There are fears that nuclear waste buried underneath the ice on the arctic island could escape because of rising temperatures.

A Cold War Era bunker called 'Camp Century', built as a laboratory code-named 'Project Iceworm' was home to an atomic reactor and a top-secret nuclear missile project. The US decommissioned the base in 1967, but large amounts of atomic waste and other toxic material were left behind. The US army assumed the waste would remain entombed in the snow and ice forever but 50 years later, this decision threatens to cause yet another natural disaster, where the radioactive waste could end up in the open air.

Excavating the site and decontaminating it are likely to be expensive. Perhaps even more complicated is establishing which country is responsible for the clean-up. The base - although not the missile testing - was built with the permission of Denmark. Greenland, however, is now a self-governing territory.