Climate activist Greta Thunberg on Monday chained herself to the entrance of the Norway Ministry of Energy to protest wind turbines operating on lands used by the Sami Indigenous people to herd reindeer.
The well-known 20-year-old climate protester sat with activists from the indigenous group, mostly teenagers, to protest the government’s solution to expand clean energy and said going green should not come at the expense of indigenous rights.
The turbines in question currently run on land in Arctic Norway, which the nation’s Supreme Court ruled in 2021 violated the rights of the Sami who have used the land to raise reindeer for centuries. However, the wind farm has continued to operate.
The activist accused the continued turbine operations as an “ongoing human rights violation” and said it “must come to an end.”
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action,” Thunberg told Reuters. “That can’t happen at the expense of some people. Then it is not climate justice.”
The Sami – who live in an area known as Lapland which stretches across parts of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and over to Russia – have argued that the sight and sound of the powerful turbines disrupt their herding traditions.
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Greta Thunberg and several protesters camped outside Norway's energy ministry to protest against wind turbines built on indigenous land https://t.co/tOavSlScib pic.twitter.com/E57z02BHBe
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 27, 2023
