Sacred land, unholy uranium: Canada’s mining industry in conflict with First Nations - The Ecologist
▻http://www.theecologist.org/campaigning/2987418/sacred_land_unholy_uranium_canadas_mining_industry_in_conflict_with_fi
Saskatchewan is generally known for prairie farmland, but its northern half presents quite a different picture. A vast blanket of forest covers the north and here you will find the Athabasca Basin, which yields the world’s purest uranium ore.
The dense dark rock called pitchblende can be found with uranium levels reaching 18%, which is unparalleled anywhere else in the world. Both government and industry seek to expand uranium mining activities in the name of progress and profit, yet there are indigenous peoples here who present a different perspective.
The Denesuline have occupied this region for thousands of years and have a right to question the extraction of this mineral from their traditional lands. They have grave concerns about the impacts and the violation of their territories.
Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin currently supplies about 20% of the global uranium market. It is mined out in ore 10 to 100 times more uranium rich than any other deposits found on Earth. This is of much interest to industry and government as it results in the creation of several thousand jobs and significant impacts on the economy.
Some years the value of production has exceeded one billion dollars, which nets about 100 million dollars in royalties for the provincial government. With such high stakes, it is easy to see how any aboriginal opposition might be unwelcome, yet there have always been some who, from the perspective of traditional ecological values, question the practice of uranium mining.