Huge quantities of coveted raw materials lie beneath the Arctic ice, and there are constant reports of fabulous treasures beneath the ice: ore, oil, natural gas, rare earths, precious metals, and elements such as nickel. They are being sought everywhere in the Arctic, despite the cold and storms.

The melting of the ice could make mining easier in the future. At the same time, the exploitation of these resources is linked to the overexploitation of nature. Nowhere is this more evident than in the northern Russian city of Norilsk: the nickel mines located there, together with the copper mines and metal smelting, are among the biggest destroyers of the environment on earth. The city itself, with its 170,000 inhabitants, is subject to strict access restrictions.

Greenland is the new Eldorado for mineral prospectors. Almost every precious mineral is said to lie beneath its ice sheet — but extracting them is another matter entirely. On the eastern flank of the Greenland Alps at Carlsberg Fjord, a camp abandoned by Chinese geologists in 2011 still lies in the landscape exactly as it was left, known locally as ‘China Town.’ The team set out to explore copper deposits but left after just two summers, a stark reminder that in the Arctic, the search for raw materials often ends in failure.”