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Mariane Paviasen Jensen, a Greenland MP for the Inuit Ataqatigiit party and prominent environmentalist, described a  episode on Channel Nine on August 10 as a “propaganda broadcast” for an Australian mining company and United States President Donald Trump — who has publicly declared his intention to take over Greenland “one way or another”.

Titled “Why are China and the US fighting over Greenland's rare earths?”, the episode promoted a giant rare earths and uranium open cut mine in Kuannersuit near Narsaq — Paviasen Jensen’s hometown — which was proposed by Australian company (ETM) but rejected by the Greenland government in 2023. The company is challenging this decision in Greenlandic and Danish courts.

ETM has appointed former Australian Liberal foreign minister as a strategic advisor and she has been lobbying the Trump administration to support the project. Environmental groups say this undermines Greenland’s sovereignty and democratic process.

ETM chairperson Simon Kidston boasted on the episode that this could be the “world’s biggest rare earths mine”, which ETM managing director Daniel Mamadou said could be worth US$11 billion and operate “for centuries”.

Paviasen Jensen spent more than four hours with 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown explaining the concerns of her community, but the episode only included fragments of her interview and allocated more time to chummy talks and sightseeing trips on buggies, speedboats and helicopters with ETM executives Kidston and Mamadou.

“They only used tiny parts of statements I made during the many hours I was with them,” Paviasen Jensen posted on .

The 60 Minutes broadcast is pro-mining, she said.

“There are many statements about the ‘amazing’ economic benefits but less about environmental consequences, as well as consequences for existing businesses, such as food production and tourism.

“There is also this arrogance again that ETM has the right to mine in Kuannersuit, and that the locals are just ignorant and therefore against it. What an arrogant attitude!”

ETM’s mining proposal was rejected on the basis of a law banning uranium mining in Greenland because a deposit of uranium sits above the rare earth deposits. But the concerns of Greenlanders extend beyond uranium.

“The fact that uranium isn’t the only problem in the Kuannersuit project and independence shouldn’t mean that we become dependent on mining companies and that we need to remove the project/company so that we can move on developing our city and area by growing food products,” Paviasen Jensen said.

She wrote an email to 60 Minutes to express her disappointment at this “documentary” that “looks mostly like a propaganda broadcast”.

In the email, shared to �鶹��ý and environmental groups, Paviasen Jensen agreed with others that it was “deeply disturbing” to watch another television show about Westerners who adopt this paternalistic attitude towards Greenland and dismiss concerns about how exactly the Greenlandic culture would be affected, the short- and long-term environmental consequences, the health effects and what the Greenlandic people have voted for.

“I told you what we are concerned about and [that] we are saying NO to project in majority in our area”, she wrote in the complaint.

“I told you about our culture, and [that] the project will not be a ‘Green’ project … they will destroy our backyard.”

In the episode, the ETM executives boast that Trump’s threat to take over Greenland massively boosted the company’s share value and investment from the US is flooding in.

60 Minutes promoted the argument that the Trump administration has a “duty to the Free World” to take control of Greenland and its resources to deny it to China and Russia.

Kidston said ETM's intention is not only to mine the rare earths but also process them in Greenland. Rare earths processing is a notoriously polluting process — this is why it mostly takes place in China and other Global South countries, including Malaysia — and the reporter failed to interrogate it.

Kidston was not challenged on his claim that the project would follow the “best environmental practice in Australia” and that Greenlanders would benefit from the mine.

“People with money will promise a lot to local people,” said Paviasen Jensen in the email, but “at the end the local people will be left with nothing … only a destroyed, useless land…”

One powerful statement from this veteran fighter for Greenland’s independence, human rights and environment that 60 Minutes did not cut out was: “You cannot buy us. We are not for sale!”