Norway's Svalbard turns the page on its coal mining past
Norway's Svalbard turns the page on its coal mining past

Rusty rails and crumbling brick buildings are all that remain to the Svea coal mine on Norway's Svalbard archipelago, which is turning away from the environmentally harmful industry.

"We need to try to restore back to nature the area as it originally was" says former Norwegian environment minister Espen Barth Eide.

Svea opened in 1917 and brought wealth to the Arctic islands, before its closure a century later in 2017.