The Norra Fosen group agrees with the government on an agreement. But that doesn’t give Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen much for.
– This is not a victory and I know that many would have wished that there would be a happy ending to this. But unfortunately this will always be a memory for me and I think it will be a historical memory for more people. This case will be left as a big wound that will take decades to heal, she says NRK Sápmi.
Hætta Isaksen has demonstrated several times in Oslo together with hundreds of other Sami young people after the Supreme Court verdict which ruled that the country is committing crimes against international law because the wind farm in Fosen was built in the middle of reindeer pasture.
“Very clear error in the system”
At the most recent one in October last year, they ended up meeting the Norwegian king.
– I think it is important to remember that the reindeer-herding Sami won in the Supreme Court in 2021 and since then the state has forced them to negotiate with the wind power companies. This is reprehensible and can be questioned, she says and continues:
– If the state had not been so quick to build those wind turbines, and the verdict had come earlier, they probably would never have built them. It shows that we have a very clear error in the system that needs to be fixed. Otherwise, I am absolutely certain that we will have to endure seeing another case where the Sami’s human rights are violated, says Isaksen.
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Hundreds of protesters in Oslo last year. Photo: Terje Pedersen