A British mining company's discovery of platinum in the Arctic north of Norway, a find potentially worth hundreds of millions of US dollars, has angered the indigenous Sami people and raised fears that one of the most remote and unspoiled regions of the world could be dug up for profit.
The find has also thrown the spotlight on Norway's treatment of its oldest ethnic minority, about 60,000 of whom eke out a living by fishing and reindeer herding in the harsh terrain inside the Arctic circle.
The Cheshire-based exploration company Tertiary Minerals has found "significant quantities" of platinum, which is more valuable than gold, in the Finnmark region of Norway, where it has a license to prospect. In doing so it has revived a centuries-old dispute over land rights.
The Sami, better known as Lapps, have vowed to block further exploration or mining until the ownership of the land, which is also thought to contain re-serves of gold and diamonds, is resolved.
"The Sami people have not been consulted," the vice-president of the Sami parliament, Ragnhild Nystad, said from the remote town of Karasjok. "We have lived in this area for thousands of years .... The land is our mother and we don't want to use up all its resources in one generation. We have to leave some for future generations."
The issue is highly sensitive since several Norwegian state authorities also lay claim to the land that the Sami say is theirs.
Patrick Cheetham, the chairman of Tertiary Minerals, is unworried by the controversy, arguing that it is too early to say if the discovery will lead to serious mining.
"The indigenous people of Norway are always seeking to get more on land rights and there is always a lot of saber-rattling," he said.
"It's understandable. It's an area of great natural value where they have had their traditional land and we're sympathetic to that. We want to work with these people and not against them."
The way the Sami people have been treated has at times marred Norway's humanist credentials. It was not until the 1960s that the authorities allowed Sami to be spoken in schools. There are also claims that Lappish graves were plundered between the 1920s and 1950s by government scientists trying to prove that the Sami were inferior to Norwegians -- accusations that are still fresh in the minds of locals.
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