2013.07.24 - Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum and the Ministry of Industry and Minerals

On Wednesday - July 24th - we spoke with Jorgen Hammeken-Holm at the Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum and Martin Christensen with the Ministry of Industry and Minerals.  The Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum (BMP) was established in 1998 in collaboration with the Danish government.  Since 2009, the BMP has been taken under Home-Rule and operates independently from it's Danish counterpart.  The BMP is responsible for the review and approval of all mineral licensing in Greenland and acts to ensure the regulatory, legal, and political framework for mineral exploitation is reliable and environmentally sound.

The efforts of the Ministry of Industry and Minerals is focused on securing employment for native Greenlanders, exploring new avenues for a stable economy, creating and enforcing regulations for new business, and establishing royalties and taxes from the mining corporations.  The Home-Rule Government recognize that if Greenland is to gain further autonomy from the Kingdom of Denmark (and eliminate the government subsidies from Denmark), they must expand and diversify their economy.  An economy constructed around the extraction and refinement of mineral resources would afford Greenland this opportunity.  The question then becomes, how might Greenland develop an expanded economy while simultaneously preserving its culture and way of life?