climate activist Greta Thunberg was reportedly detained by Oslo police last week for blocking the entrances of Norway’s energy and finance ministries with 12 other protesters. In a video of the incident that went viral on Twitter, Thunberg is picked up and carried away from the scene of the protest by Norwegian authorities.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg was removed by Norwegian police from the entrance of the ministry of finance in Oslo during a protest on March 1. The group is demanding the removal of wind turbines from reindeer pastures on Sami Indigenous land in central Norway. pic.twitter.com/cNVmCjWZlc
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) March 5, 2023
Given Thunberg’s reputation as the 20-year-old who lectures world leaders on their inadequate strategies for addressing climate change, it’s odd that the Swedish activist is siding against the environmentalist lobby this time around. Instead, Thunberg is standing with the indigenous Sami, who use Norway’s Fosen peninsula as grazing ground for reindeer, which they use for the animals’ meat, hide, and antlers. The Sami people claim this centuries-old tradition is put at risk by the construction of 151 wind turbines on the land.
“The constructions are stealing the reindeer’s grazing land,” reindeer herder and Sámi politician Maja Kristine Jåma told CNN. The reindeer are also affected by the surrounding infrastructure of the turbines, Jåma said. “It disturbs them a lot.”
While Norway’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Sami in October 2021, saying the wind turbine permits were invalid because they violated the rights of the Sami by infringing on their grazing land, the wind turbines are still operating nearly a year and a half later.
