Swedish town pays a price for its mining success

|
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff/File
A view of the LKAB iron ore mine is seen from the local ski run, March 14, 2014, in Kiruna, Sweden. The town is being moved by the mining company because the mine's underground tunnels are endangering most of the town's buildings.
  • Quick Read
  • Deep Read ( 5 Min. )

As the state-owned Swedish mining company LKAB expands its operations, the Arctic town of Kiruna is sinking into the ground. So it’s relocating 2 miles east.

It’s rare to hear complaints about the move. The most beloved buildings are being painstakingly transported to the new town, which aspires to be one of the most modern and livable in Sweden.

Why We Wrote This

A story focused on

When an organization underwrites the needs of the many, how does it balance that against the needs of the few for whom it is directly responsible? That question is percolating in Kiruna, Sweden.

Yet seeds of unease have taken root among residents who say their voices have been drowned out. Some wonder if the company lost sight of the balance between meeting its own needs and doing right by the town it founded.

According to Annica Henelund, what has been missing in her interactions with LKAB is respect. She and her sister calculated a sum they would need to close down their family store. For two years, she says, the mining company pressed them on every Swedish krona, putting them on hold for months at a time and flying in a lawyer from Stockholm. “They threatened us,” says Ms. Henelund.

“The relocation process is challenging both LKAB and the municipality to take into account each other’s interests and goals to find solutions that benefit the town,” says researcher Chelsey Jo Huisman. “It can be frustrating when the municipality and residents are needing and wanting to prioritize other values when so much comes down to an economic logic for LKAB.”

Editor’s note: The story was updated to clarify Dr. Huisman’s explanation of the relationship between LKAB and the town.

Annica Henelund swings open the front door of her fabric shop as she has thousands of times before. Inside, not much has changed in the past 51 years. Piles of bright cloth line tabletops and shelves from floor to ceiling. Most of it will never be sold.

In a few short weeks, the store must be empty and ready for demolition.

Residents of Kiruna have long known this moment would come. As the state-owned iron-ore mining company LKAB expands its operations underground, this Arctic town is sinking into the ground. So it’s relocating. A shiny new city center located 2 miles east was inaugurated last fall.

Why We Wrote This

A story focused on

When an organization underwrites the needs of the many, how does it balance that against the needs of the few for whom it is directly responsible? That question is percolating in Kiruna, Sweden.

But Ms. Henelund, who runs the store with her sister, didn’t think it would happen like this. They can’t afford rent and other costs in the new center, so they’re closing down the shop they inherited from their mother and aunt. “Things shouldn’t have gone as bad as they did,” she says about two years of tense negotiations with the mining company. “We are so tiny for them. ... But for us, it’s our lives.”

In Kiruna, it’s rare to hear complaints about the city transformation, as the process is called. The project was an urban planner’s dream – a blank slate for reinventing a city of the future. The most beloved buildings are being painstakingly transported to the new town, which aspires to be one of the most modern and livable in Sweden. Though they may prefer to stay, most locals accept the need to move to allow LKAB to continue mining.

Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor
Annica Henelund, pictured, and her sister ran a fabric store they inherited from their mother and aunt in the old town of Kiruna. They couldn’t afford the move to the new city center.

Yet seeds of unease have taken root among residents like Ms. Henelund who say their voices have been drowned out. While the revenue that LKAB produces is vital to Sweden’s welfare state – and thus benefits every Swede – some wonder if the company lost sight of the balance between meeting its own needs and doing right by the town it founded.

“We trust LKAB so very, very much. Definitely too much,” says Gunnar Selberg, who served as mayor of Kiruna from 2021 to 2022. Of the town’s 23,000 residents, around two-thirds depend on the mine for employment. In office, Mr. Selberg pushed the municipality to take a stronger stand in its dealings with the company.

“The relocation process is challenging both LKAB and the municipality to take into account each other’s interests and goals to find solutions that benefit the town,” says Chelsey Jo Huisman, a researcher at the Stockholm School of Economics who wrote her Ph.D. dissertation about Kiruna’s city transformation. “It can be frustrating when the municipality and residents are needing and wanting to prioritize other values when so much comes down to an economic logic for LKAB.”

“Mother” of Kiruna

Historically, the mining company has taken its role as the “mother” of Kiruna seriously. No town existed here before LKAB arrived in this icy landscape in 1900. In the beginning, the mining company provided the town’s library, fire station, school, and hospital, as well as housing for workers. The municipality of Kiruna didn’t form until 1948.

In recent years, Mr. Selberg has found himself having to explain this history to company leadership, who now view LKAB’s role in Kiruna primarily through the lens of profit. Whether due to rising global competition or strict stock agreements with the Swedish government, he says that poses a challenge for residents of Kiruna who are used to trusting LKAB to call the shots.

Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor
The Kiruna Church, one of Sweden's largest wooden buildings, will be relocated to the new city center in the coming years.

According to Ms. Henelund, what has been missing in her interactions with LKAB is respect. She and her sister calculated a sum they would need to close down the family store. For two years, she says the mining company pressed them on every Swedish krona, putting them on hold for months at a time and flying in a lawyer from Stockholm. “They threatened us,” says Ms. Henelund, tearing up. LKAB did not respond to requests for comment.

“This is something that is a negotiation between LKAB and the private individuals,” says Nina Eliasson, head of planning for the city. As she sees it, most of the 6,000 residents who need to move – close to a third of the population – are satisfied with the process. Businesses were offered space in new shopping centers, and homeowners were given 125% of the market value of their homes.

“You can’t argue with LKAB”

One Sunday evening, a crowd spills out of the Aurora conference center in the new city center, coats hugged tight as wind whips around the town hall. The movie theater sold out for “The Abyss,” a 2023 thriller that imagines the collapse of Kiruna into the ground.

Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris/Staff

Birgitta Skagerlind isn’t fazed by the dramatization of her town’s plight. Yet she isn’t convinced by the real-life solution. She says she didn’t receive the full sum she was promised for the apartment she owned in the old town – and wasn’t able to afford one of the new apartments. Instead she’s renting.

“You can protest, but about what?” says Ms. Skagerlind, who works at the local hospital. “You can’t argue with LKAB.”

That’s a common refrain around here: Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

It’s a hand that also feeds Sweden’s government coffers. The deposits under Kiruna are Europe’s richest source of iron ore, 80% of which is produced by LKAB. Its two mines in Kiruna and the nearby city of Gällivare brought in 21 billion kronor ($2 billion) in profit in 2022 – over a third was distributed as dividends to the government, helping to underwrite the country’s social programs.

Meanwhile, the municipality is falling deeper into debt as costs for the city transformation rise. While LKAB foots a portion of the bill, municipal debt reached 2.2 billion kronor ($210 million) in 2022.

Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor
Local high school teacher Timo Vilgats, shown here in his living room, says what is needed in Kiruna’s transformation is more empathy from those in power.

Timo Vilgats, a high school teacher, wishes he could have played a more active role in the design of the new school, which opened last fall. But the bigger problem, he says, is that the politicians are “completely united” with the mine. “It means the people have no voice,” he says.

He’s seen other ways of doing things. His eldest daughter works for a mine in Gällivare that similarly forced her family to move to a new area. He says she and her husband felt their needs were listened to and were amazed by how generous the mining company there was in allocating them new space.

In the frenzy of the transformation in Kiruna, Mr. Vilgats feels the human side of things has gotten lost. “I think everyone, especially those with power,” he says, “needs to be more humble, and try to understand.”

Editor’s note: The story was updated to clarify Dr. Huisman’s explanation of the relationship between LKAB and the town.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Swedish town pays a price for its mining success
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2024/0125/Swedish-town-pays-a-price-for-its-mining-success
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe