Nordland newspaper reports that former Hamarøy mayor Rolf Steffensen is resigning from the Labor Party due to the issue of the wind power plants at Fosen in Trøndelag.
Sami activists and Nature and Youth block the entrance to the Ministry of Oil and Energy on Monday to show opposition to the government in the case of the wind farm. On Monday morning, they were visited by climate activist Greta Thunberg.
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The reason for the action is that it has been 500 days since the Supreme Court declared that the license for what is the country’s largest wind power plant was granted on an incorrect basis. The government has not yet decided how to follow up on the verdict.
“The direct cause is the APS and the government’s persistent violations of indigenous rights following the Supreme Court’s judgment in the so-called Fosen case,” writes Steffensen in an e-mail to the party, according to AN.
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Steffensen has been a member since 1985, and was mayor from 2007 to 2015.
– This case is so fundamental. Here we have a Supreme Court judgment which states that the license for this massive power installation at Fosen has been granted on an illegal basis. It should never have been built and today violates the human rights of Norway’s indigenous people, he says to AN.
Steffensen tells Nettavisen that the turbines must be demolished.
– There is only one action I expect, and that is that they follow the premise of the judgment, that a process is initiated to take down the wind turbines. Nature must be returned to what it once was for reindeer herding in the area. That is the only thing that is acceptable. Everything else is intolerable, he says.
– Even if the Supreme Court does not say specifically that the turbines must be demolished?
– I see that this is what you hide behind, but I don’t see any other way to do it. It is an illegal decision, and then you have to go back to the beginning. Everything else will be a new offence, says the former Ap man to Nettavisen.
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Fosen wind occupies an area of 60 km2, and produces approximately 2.7 TWh a year, which is far more than what households in Trondheim use in a year. The state is the majority owner of Fosen wind.
