Pekkarinen and gold prospectors meet at Lemmenjoki

Minister reiterates machines for gold digging to be banned in national parks

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A visit by Minister of Economic Affairs Mauri Pekkarinen (Centre Party) to the gold digging operation at Lemmenjoki raised some heated debate between the minister and local prospectors.
     The government plans to impose a ban on the use of machinery to prospect for gold in national parks in Finnish Lapland. Consequently, many prospectors, now fear for their livelihoods.
      During a visit to the area on Saturday, Pekkarinen said to Jouko Korhonen, chairman of the Gold Prospectors Association of Finnish Lapland, that if he imagines that his gold digging operation will be passed on to his children in the same form that it is in now, the state will certainly intervene.
      For Korhonen, searching for gold with the help of a digging machine in the wilds of Inari is his source of livelihood, in addition to being a way of life, and a home.
      Pekkarinen says that it is no longer a question of if mechanised gold prospecting will be brought to an end in the Lemmenjoki National Park, but when that will happen.
     
Pekkarinen’s visit to Lemmenjoki had been awaited in the area as if it were the mother lode.
      Pekkarinen arrived at the digging site on the Miessijoki river in a helicopter of the Finnish Border Guard. The air at the high elevation as clear and crisp.
      The aim of the visit was to show decision-makers something about how gold is extracted in Finnish Lapland before a new law on mining takes effect.
      Under a proposal that Pekkarinen’s ministry is currently working on, mechanised gold digging could end as early as 2015 - a prospect which angers the diggers.
      When he came across a traditional non-mechanised operation, Pekkarinen was inspired to grab a shovel himself and pose for photographers while standing in a pit.
     
Pekkarinen did not find any gold, but he did find famous Finnish mountain climber Veikka Gustafsson.
      Gustafsson has spent time on many summers prospecting for gold in Lapland.
      Back at the mechanised dig, Pekkarinen assured the angry prospectors that there would be a transitional period of at least eight years, if the nwe legislation forces the machinery out.
      However, he was firm in his view that mechanised digging is a “massive” operation, and that it needs to come to an end in the national park.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Large gold nugget found in Finnish Lapland (8.8.2008)
  Europe´s largest gold mine to be opened in Finnish Lapland (6.6.2006)
  First gold ingots cast at Kittilä mine (4.2.2009)

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