Not so easy to be green. Stadtwerke München is investing heavily in supposedly sustainable wind energy, especially in wind farms in Norway – and all of a sudden you not only have the indigenous Sami people as your opponents, but also a visibly upset Greta Thunberg at the forefront.
The Swedish climate activist rushed to Oslo on Monday to support a group of Sami who have been blocking the oil and energy ministry in the Norwegian capital for days. Because of a huge wind turbine on the Fosen peninsula in Trøndelag on the west coast of the country, which is taking the ancestral land for reindeer herding from the Sami. When it comes to human rights violations, Greta Thunberg told the Norwegian broadcaster TV2, then she also demonstrates against green wind power: “We cannot misuse climate change as a cover for colonialism.”
The core of the dispute is the two wind farms Storheia and Roan near Fosen, which were completed in 2019 and 2020. Together they form the largest wind power region in Norway with 151 wind turbines at the moment. Two years ago, in March 2021, the Roan wind farm with its 71 wind turbines was majority owned by Stadtwerke München SWM and its Norwegian partner Trønderenergi.
Protests had accompanied the partnership between SWM and Trønderenergi since it began in January 2019. Trønderenergi is a company owned by two dozen Norwegian municipalities. In the new joint venture from 2019, Trønderenergi owns a minority stake of 30 percent, 70 percent belong to the Munich-based company.
Citizens on the island of Froya protested in 2019 against the feared destruction of nature by the planned new wind farms, as did reindeer herders in the Stockfjellet area inland. At the time, the Aftenposten newspaper wrote about the Munich beer, which would soon be cooled with Norwegian electricity, and the Bavarian knuckle of pork, which would be heated with it: “We will bear the consequences, Germany has a clear conscience.”
The Supreme Court agreed with the Seeds. But the verdict is ignored
The protests in Oslo against the wind turbines in Fosen have taken on a new quality. The Sami went to court – and got their rights a year and a half ago: Norway’s Supreme Court ruled in October 2021 that the construction of the wind turbines in Fosen violated the rights of the indigenous people: The Sami have been using the region for hundreds of years to herd reindeer, and that is “a protected form of cultural practice,” according to the court. The rights of the Sami were violated because no “satisfactory compensatory measures” were taken during construction. However, because experience has shown that reindeer avoid land with wind turbines, reindeer herding, ultimately the Sami way of life, is threatened in the long term.
What makes the Sami so angry: 500 days have passed since the verdict – and nothing has happened. “The 151 systems are running at full speed,” reports TV2. Civil disobedience – that is, the blockade of the ministry in Oslo – is her “last resort,” said artist and actress Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen, also from the Sami people: “We were not heard.”
So far, the statements made by politicians have not been able to calm the anger of the demonstrators. Social Democrat Prime Minister Jonas Bahr Støhre said he understood that people were frustrated. And Energy Minister Terje Aasland announced that one must now consider how to proceed with the wind farms. The government needs “more research, more knowledge to make new decisions.” That could take another year.
Green leader Arild Hermstad called the government’s inaction after the Supreme Court’s ruling “shameful”. The Sami activists have been demonstrating since last Thursday. Over the weekend, the police had pushed her out of the ministry’s lobby. That’s why they gathered on Monday to protest outside the entrance. Many wore the traditional costume inside out – an old form of Sami protest. Elsewhere, it has long been evident that wind turbines and reindeer husbandry cannot coexist, say the demonstrators. “We demand the demolition of the wind turbines,” said Greta Thunberg on Monday, “and the return of the area to the seeds”.