Metsähallitus and the Finnish Supervisory Agency (LVV) say AA Sakatti Mining's plan to compensate for harm to the protected Viiankiaapa mire is not enough.
The mine would weaken 12 protected habitats and species on the mire in Sodankylä, mainly by lowering the groundwater. The Finnish government will decide whether it may go ahead.
Two authorities say the plan to make up for the Sakatti mine's harm to Viiankiaapa, a protected aapa mire in Sodankylä, is not enough. Metsähallitus, which manages about 95 per cent of the protected area, and the Finnish Supervisory Agency (LVV) gave their statements to Finland's Ministry of the Environment on 2 October 2026.
AA Sakatti Mining, a subsidiary of the British company Anglo American, plans to mine mainly copper and nickel, and also cobalt, from a deposit under Viiankiaapa. According to LVV, the mine would weaken 12 of the habitat types and species for which the site is protected, mostly by lowering the groundwater. Dust could also lower the quality of the habitats.
Viiankiaapa belongs to the EU's Natura 2000 network, and almost all of it is also a national mire conservation area. It is protected for 13 habitat types, 6 plant and animal species and 28 bird species. Building the mine would require an exemption from its Natura protection.
Compensation means adding areas with the same habitats and species to the Natura 2000 network, matching the losses in both quantity and quality. Metsähallitus says habitats in excellent condition cannot be replaced by areas that will still be in poorer condition after restoration.
The aapa mire shows the gap most clearly. The plan counts 401 hectares of aapa mire in the mine's impact area, all of it in excellent condition. In Metsähallitus's view the whole Sakattioja aapa mire complex, about 1,000 hectares, has to be compensated, because a decline in its excellent condition cannot be ruled out. The compensation sites have no aapa mire in excellent condition, and the restored mires are not expected to reach that condition within 30 years.
Mire in excellent condition: affected by the mine, and on the compensation sites
For the aapa mire the figure is the whole Sakattioja complex; the plan itself counts 401 hectares. On the compensation sites, rich fen in excellent condition is found only on Käppäläaapa.
Metsähallitus also calls the plan unfinished. The restoration work involves uncertainties over land-use rights and over ditches that have not been checked in the field, and in its view only measures whose feasibility has been confirmed can count as compensation.
LVV came to the same conclusion. Its senior inspector Riikka Juutinen says the measures may be enough for three of the 12: springs and spring fens, transition mires and quaking bogs, and the Lapland buttercup. For the others the measures are either insufficient or cannot be assessed from the plan.
“LVV considers the measures planned to compensate for the Sakatti mine's harm to the Natura 2000 network to be on the right track but insufficient, and the plan must be supplemented in several respects,” says Mari Rajala, head of LVV's nature conservation unit.
The plan also has strengths. Metsähallitus welcomes the fact that the compensation sites lie right next to Viiankiaapa and would form one ecological whole with it, and it praises the extensive field surveys done on them.
AA Sakatti Mining's chief executive Pertti Lamberg told Yle that the compensation plan gives sufficient grounds for an exemption from Natura protection.
“We will now go carefully through the statements of LVV and Metsähallitus. The valuable feedback in them will help to supplement the compensation plan as the project moves forward,” Lamberg said.
The Finnish government decides on the exemption and on the compensation, based on preparation by the Ministry of the Environment. The application was filed by the Regional Council of Lapland on 19 May 2026 and is linked to the regional land-use plan the council is drafting for the Sakatti mine. If the exemption is granted, the harm to the Natura 2000 network must be compensated in full, and the government's decision must set out the measures.
Viiankiaapa is one of the most representative aapa mires in Sodankylä, and a marked nature trail crosses it. The trail starts 25 kilometres from the centre of Sodankylä, where a small car park has room for 3–4 cars. The trail is 6.3 kilometres long and easy, much of it on duckboards: a loop of about 4 kilometres makes a short day trip, and a side path of about 1.9 kilometres leads to a bird-watching tower. By Lake Viiankijärvi there is a kota, a Lappish hut for a fire and a meal.