Comments by "Gaza is not Amalek" (@Ass_of_Amalek) on "Could rare earths help integrate Estonians of Russian origin? | Focus on Europe" video.

rare earths mining is infamous for causing much destruction and pollution with reltively little to show for (because the elements only occur in relatively small concentrations, so you need to mine or leech a huge volume of ground). that's going to be a very bad candidate then. all resource extraction industries have that issue to a degree, but rare earths much more than most. and they're largely right to protect forests, at least if they're primary forests. with such a small country, those could go very fast if you let them be cut down. they may not be seen as special in the neighbourhood of estonia, but if you compare the rest of the EU, most of it is very deficient in forests, and especially primary or even at all natural froests (as opposed to monoculture tree plantations of spruce or eucalyptus).
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