ARCTIC: A Diamond Mine Closure & more – 22nd July 2025

Góðan daginn from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 22nd of July twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

The defence of the Arctic is becoming a serious concern for more and more countries around the world, with France becoming the newest country to take interest in defending the far north. On Tuesday the 15th, Naval News reported that the French Armed Forces have created their first-ever defense strategy for the Arctic.

France has defined the Greenlandic, European and western Russian Arctic as its priority area for defence, with the main objectives of the Armed Forces focusing on three areas: Investing more money and resources in the Arctic, increasing NATO cooperation, and developing new technologies for Arctic defence.

The rest of Europe is stepping up its efforts to protect the Arctic too. On Friday the 18th, the EU announced its eighteenth sanctions package against Russia. Some of the sanctions targeted an oil refinery in India to halt Russia’s efforts to increase oil and gas development in the Arctic. The Russian energy company Rosenoft has an oil refinery in India, which buys almost all of its oil from the Russian Arctic.

This sanctions package will make processing and exporting oil from Russia’s north harder and more expensive, as the EU attempts to slow the growth of this valuable industry.

Russia isn’t ignoring the increasing tension in the Arctic. On Thursday the 17th, Russia’s ambassador to Denmark gave an interview with the state broadcaster, Novosti, in which he warned that if any military conflict breaks out over Greenland then Russia will take military measures itself. With US President Trump repeatedly threatening to annex Greenland, and the EU steadfastly defending the island, Russia believes a military buildup in Greenland is a threat to its own polar security.

The fight over the future of Greenland just brought the largest Arctic nation into the struggle.

Russia is spending big on its own grand visions for the Arctic. The country has an ambitious plan to create a wave of new cities across the north, and the costs of this plan are coming to light. On Wednesday the 16th, the Minister of Economic Development for the northern Komi region announced that the current cost estimate for turning the town of Vorkuta into a bustling polar city is almost $600 million US dollars. The plans for this money include a massive expansion in social facilities and upgrading the local road system to connect the surrounding settlements and coal mines to Vorkuta, turning this town of under 60,000 people into a large industrial city.

Norway has big plans for its northern regions as well. On Tuesday the 15th, the mayor of Vardø in the Arctic Finnmark region spoke with national broadcaster NRK about Northern Norway's first nuclear power plant. The process for building this power plant has only begun recently, and the first architectural drawings have arrived to visualize what the finished plant may look like. Mayor Labahå notes that the entire facility is only expected to take up about 200 acres (under one square kilometer).

However, local Sami reindeer herders are concerned that this project marks yet another disruption to their traditional livelihoods, and that their community hasn’t been consulted about how the power plant might impact their homelands.

The scientific future of Canada’s Arctic received a big boost this week. On Thursday the 17th, the Canadian Arctic Science Network awarded almost $10 million US dollars in funding to twenty-five research projects to better understand the growing challenges in the Arctic.

Among the projects receiving funding are a study to identify new bacteria infecting Arctic animals, a genetic study to understand how Arctic organisms are responding to climate change, and research to investigate how environmental change affects community health.

To check out the rest of the projects, follow the link in the show notes.

It’s not all good news for northern Canada, though. On Thursday the 17th, Burgundy Diamond Mines announced it is laying off hundreds of employees at its Point Lake diamond mine in the Northwest Territory, citing record-low diamond prices.

In April, the regional government gave a support package worth over $10 million US dollars to mines including Point Lake, to keep the mine open while diamond prices remain low. But even with this intervention, Burgundy Mines closed down one of the region's most important sources of employment.

The North West Territory can at least look forward to a more forested future. On Monday the 14th, the news agency Cabin Radio reported that the Behchokǫ̀ community has begun the largest reforestation project in the territory’s history.

Over the next three weeks, volunteers will be planting over 1.4 million tree seedlings around the Behchokǫ̀, Russell Lake and James Lake communities. The seedlings are all locally sourced and the project hopes to restore the region after the record devastating wildfires that scarred the area in twenty twenty-three.

There’s good news for Indigenous communities over the border in Alaska too. On Wednesday the 16th, President Donald Trump signed into law two measures designed to benefit Alaska Native people. The laws both hope to improve the economic outlook for Alaskan native communities.

One law removes the requirement that Alaska Native village corporations hold some land in federal trust: now communities will be allowed to own the entirety of their homelands. With the second law, Alaska Natives who are aged, blind or disabled will be allowed not to count some incomes when they calculate their eligibility for federal support.

While Trump has come under criticism for his treatment of native communities, he can celebrate a political win against some of his most ardent critics.

Meanwhile, the increasing threats in the Arctic are bringing the EU and Iceland closer than ever. On Thursday the 17th, the European Commission confirmed that Ursula von der Leyen, the EU President, visited Iceland to launch talks on a new security agreement.

She said in a press conference that this agreement will be independent of Iceland’s NATO membership and existing defense treaties with the United States, creating a third pillar for Iceland’s security interests. Iceland will also gain access to the EU’s safe program, which acts as a shared fund for European nations to purchase military equipment.

Elsewhere in Iceland, a familiar villain has risen once more. On Wednesday the 16th, the Icelandic Met Office confirmed that the Sundhnúkur volcano is erupting again. This marks the ninth eruption since volcanic activity began in late twenty twenty-three, with local police confirming on Wednesday the 16th that the nearby town of Grindavik must be evacuated.

According to Met Office data released on Monday the 21st, this eruption has remained small and does not endanger any human infrastructure.

A different threat has appeared though, as the Met Office has measured significant air pollution spreading from the volcano across the whole west of Iceland. A police statement on the 21st noted that residents of the Reykjanes peninsula, where the volcano is located, should remain indoors until authorities confirm pollution levels have dropped.

On another note, on Tuesday the 15th, Reuters reported that Finnish Lapland is experiencing an unprecedented heatwave breaching thirty degrees Celsius, about eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit. On the same day the Finnish Meteorological Institute issued a heat and wildfire warning across Northern Finland, which remains in place until at least Friday the 25th.

Closing this edition with sports news, the twenty twenty-five International Island Games, a competition for small island states across the world, finished on Friday the 18th. The results are in, and it’s a mixed bag for the Arctic competitors. According to the official medal table, Greenland finished with only a single gold medal, in badminton. The Åland Islands fared a little better, winning two golds in gymnastics out of their total fifteen medals.

But winning the whole competition by a huge margin was the Faroe Islands, receiving over forty gold medals and almost 100 medals in total, beating second-placed Jersey by twenty medals.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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