Acquiring land with essential natural resources and critical geographic positioning has been key to the recent political agenda of the United States. President Donald Trump’s escalated demands to acquire Greenland suggests this strategy for the political and economical security of the US. But why is Greenland so significant?
Greenland is an autonomous territory that forms part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the world’s biggest non-continental island, spanning across 2 million square kilometres, just under the geographical north pole. 80 per cent of the total landmass is covered in glacial ice sheets, but, unlike Antarctica, the island’s coastline is not entirely surrounded by ice shelves- huge floating ice formations, but rather, ice tongues- which are extended parts of continental glaciers.
With global temperatures rising, however, this ice is melting, exposing more land, and allowing more naval movements in proximate waters.
This has accentuated the island’s stategic importance. Situated within an important trade route between America, Europe, and China, makes the region a key millitary asset, and an economic stronghold.
Alongside advantageous geographical positioning, analysts suggest that Greenland’s untapped raw materials are equally motivating the US to acquire the land. Greenland’s three rare earth element deposits are stored deep under the ice and are amongst the largest in the world. These rare earth elements are essential for low emission and artificial intelligence technologies and melting ice and improving technology is making extraction easier.
The US Geological Survey also estimates that there are 31 billion barrels of oil in the North Eastern region further motivating Trump’s demands. One fifth of Greenland is ice-free also making it possible that measurements of the resource stores have been greatly underestimated.
Other resources like metals, gas and minerals scarcely found elsewhere, make Greenland’s geological value especially high. Supplies of uranium or metal neodymium are predicted to meet a quarter of the world’s future demand.
This particular richness in mineral and other natural ressources comes from the fact that Greenland has a very unique geological history. 100 million years ago, Greenland moved up from the south, to reach its modern northern position, through a phenomena called continental drift. Strong volcanic activity and mountain formation have also favoured the appearance of such rare resources,
While attaining advantageous land can strengthen economic and military security, such behaviours have led to 40 per cent of conflicts over the last 60 years, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. Throughout history, these types of land acquisition have not furthered the welfare of citizens, or the interests of the natural environment, in fact, quite the contrary has happened.
Having the world’s largest natural reserve park, conserving Greenland’s near-pristine conditions is fundamental for the sake of biodiversity, indigenous populations’ rights and environmental stability.
Although consistently rejected, Donald Trump announced the creation of a “framework of a future deal” to aquire Greenland, at the World Economic Forum this week. The nature of this deal is unclear but poses a serious question about the value of geographical features of land in politics.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash