Greta Thunberg protests unlawful wind generators in Norway
by AFP Workers Writers
Oslo (AFP) Oct 12, 2023
Swedish local weather campaigner Greta Thunberg on Thursday joined indigenous Sami activists protesting in Oslo towards wind generators nonetheless working on reindeer herding land two years after a court docket dominated them unlawful.
On October 11, 2021, Norway’s Supreme Court docket discovered that two wind farms within the Fosen area of western Norway — on land utilized by Sami reindeer herders — violated the rights of the indigenous individuals, assured by the UN, to practise their tradition of reindeer husbandry.
Two years later, the 151 generators are nonetheless working.
To mark the anniversary on Wednesday, dozens of atmosphere activists and Samis started a sequence of protests within the Norwegian capital anticipated to final a number of days, demanding the demolition of the generators.
On Thursday, Thunberg joined the activists to dam the doorway to the headquarters of state-owned power group Statkraft, which operates 80 of the 151 generators in Fosen.
“It is necessary to indicate solidarity when human rights violations are happening particularly in Scandinavia towards the Sami individuals,” Thunberg informed AFP on Wednesday.
She was talking simply after a court docket within the southern Swedish city of Malmo had fined her for public disobedience at a July twenty fourth protest in Malmo.
“All of us who could be there and present our assist ought to,” she stated.
On Thursday, she sat on the bottom subsequent to activists clad in conventional Sami clothes on the foot of a lavvu, a Sami tent erected outdoors the Statkraft entrance.
Thunberg had already taken half in an indication in February to mark the five hundredth day for the reason that Supreme Court docket ruling.
“Greta Thunberg is a vital ally supporting our trigger,” Sami activist and artist Ella Marie Haetta Isaksen stated.
– Demolition ‘excluded’ –
Whereas the Supreme Court docket discovered that the expropriation and working permits for the development of the generators had been invalid, it gave no steering on what ought to be carried out with the generators, which had been already in operation.
Norway’s authorities has apologised to Sami reindeer herding households and recognised that their human rights have been violated.
It has launched a mediation course of to attempt to discover a resolution enabling each the herders and wind farms to proceed their actions.
Petroleum and Power Minister Terje Aasland stated Wednesday “the destruction of all wind generators was excluded” and “not a probable final result of both a decision-making course of or a mediation course of.”
The end result might set a precedent for different infrastructure initiatives on the huge lands historically utilized by the Sami throughout Norway.
An indigenous minority of round 100,000 individuals unfold over the northern components of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, the Sami have historically lived off reindeer herding and fishing.
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