OSLO (Reuters) – Environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg and dozens of other activists on Monday blocked entrances to Norway’s energy ministry, protesting against wind turbines built on land traditionally used by indigenous Sami reindeer herders.
Norway’s supreme court in 2021 ruled that two wind farms built in central Norway violated Sami rights under international conventions, but the turbines remain in operation more than 16 months later.
“I am here to support the struggle for human rights and indigenous rights,” Thunberg told Reuters while sitting outside the ministry’s main entrance with other demonstrators.
“The Norwegian state is violating human rights and that is completely unacceptable and we need to stand in solidarity in this struggle,” she said.
Reindeer herders in the Nordic country say the sight and sound of the giant wind power machinery frighten their animals and disrupt age-old traditions. They are demanding that the turbines be torn down.
The government has said the ultimate fate of the wind farms is a complex legal and political quandary despite the supreme court ruling and is hoping to find a compromise.
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, Victoria Klesty, Nora Buli; Writing by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Robert Birsel)
