Dressed in the kofte, a traditional red and blue Sami costume that many elders no longer dared to wear, the Norwegian singer and musician Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen, a young woman of 24, did not know what flame she was going to light eight days ago, going occupy the lobby of the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. A Don Quixote-like fight against the ” wind mill “, as wind turbines are called in Norway. More particularly those which turn on the grounds of the Sami reindeer herders, on the peninsula of Fosen.
Who sows the wind…
Followed by dozens of indigenous and climate activists, she led the most important uprising in favor of the Sami, the last indigenous people of Europe, formerly called the Lapps, since the mobilization against the construction of a dam on the river of Alta-Kautokeinodes in the late 1970s. Several ministries and institutions were blocked.
On Thursday morning March 2, the Norwegian police had, for the first time since the start of the movement, arrested 12 activists who were blocking the entrance to the Ministry of Finance as part of a campaign to “shut down the state” as long as the wind turbines remain upright.
“We are here to protest the continued human rights abuses in Fosen, where 151 wind turbines are on the land illegally – this is according to a high court ruling – but they are there anyway, so we ask that they be dismantled and that the rights of indigenous peoples be respected,” exhibited Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen, winner of a singing competition for European minority languages, Liet International, in 2018.
The right for them
It has been 507 days since the Norwegian Supreme Court ruled: two wind farms built in Fosen, in the west of the country, violate the right of Sami families to practice their culture, namely reindeer herding, a right guaranteed by a UN text. According to the six plaintiff families of breeders, the noise and the shape of these energy generators repel their cattle, which can no longer take advantage of the best land to graze in winter.
At the end of the mobilization, to which the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg joined as reinforcements, the Norwegian government apologized on Thursday March 2 to the penalized breeders. What they categorically refused to do a few days earlier.
This Friday, March 3, a last rally took place on Castle Hill and around the Storting, the Norwegian parliament, before the break. “We need a break. We stop now,” said Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen, but “we are ready to relaunch actions if we deem it necessary”.
Several issues
Problem solving work can begin. The apologies were “crucial for us to move forward”, confirms the President of the Sami Parliament, Silje Karine Muotka. Fosen reindeer herders are invited to lunch with Labor Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. “I would like to emphasize that we are not ruling out any solution,” underlined the Chief Executive. The Supreme Court has already ruled out the option of locking up reindeer to feed them.
The government would like as much as possible to maintain expensive installations (6 billion crowns, 540 million euros) and capable of supplying the neighboring city of Trondheim, 180,000 inhabitants. The executive has requested additional expertise in the hope of finding a compromise. The idea would be to reduce the activity of wind turbines to an acceptable threshold in the eyes of breeders and the courts. Without an agreement, the Sami could go to court and force the state to remove the wind turbines.
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