Russian indigenous peoples call on Elon Musk not to buy battery metals from Nornickel – by Thomas Nilsen (The Baren Observer – August 7, 2020)

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/

The company that recently made international headlines for causing environmental disasters on the Taimyr Peninsula by spilling 20,000 tons of diesel fuel into a river in the fragile Arctic ecosystems is under increased pressure.

In a letter to Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, the Aborigen Forum urge him not to buy nickel, copper and other products from Nornickel until the company conducts a full and independent assessment of the environmental damage caused by its production.

This week, The Barents Observer could tell the story about dying tree leaves caused by massive air-pollution over a several square kilometers large area near Nornickel’s smelters in Monchegorsk on the Kola Peninsula.

In the letter, the Aboriginal-Forum describes environmental pollution as “routine occurrence” pointing to the river oil spill on the Taimyr Peninsula as an on-going environmental disaster, “but not an isolated incident.”

“The lands of indigenous people appropriated by the company for industrial production now resemble a lunar landscape, and traditional use of these lands is no longer possible,” the letter to Musk reads.

For the rest of this article: https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2020/08/russian-indigenous-peoples-call-elon-musk-not-buy-battery-metals-nornickel