Reindeer Blog

One of the largest wind farms in the world is being built in northern Sweden but not everyone is pleased about it. The turbines cut across an area used by Sweden’s indigenous Sámi reindeer herders. An hour’s drive inland from the town of Piteå, a dozen wind turbines tower over the surrounding forest. In the [...]

Finnmark Kraft has been granted a licence to establish a new wind park on the Berlevag peninsula, where there is already a wind park. As many as 100 wind turbines could be established supplying up to 300 MW. The company have been reluctant to estimate how many towers they would build in the past, as [...]

The Saami Council, the NGO that represents the Sami people in all four countries in which they live have released a strongly worded press release criticising the German bank KfW IPEX for their funding of a giant wind power project in Sami reindeer herding areas, in contravention of the OECD Convention on Multilateral Enterprises. In [...]

The Norwegian company Fred Olsen Renewables has received rights for two years to examine the possibility of a windmill park in Stekenjokk in Västerbotten. Tomas Nejne, leader of the Vilhelmina Southern sameby (Sami village) is quoted as saying to the regional newspaper We hoped to the end, that our interests would come first. For us [...]

(Photo J.E. Kalvemo, NRK) The Bessaker wind power station in the Fosen region in the southernmost parts of reindeer husbandry in Norway has just opened and was visited by reindeer herders from Norway and Sweden (in Jamtland and Trondelag) who fear the impact that it will have (there are plans for large expansion) on reindeer [...]

Although on paper, Sami reindeer herders have a statutory right to graze their reindeer over half the surface of Sweden, in practice, industrial activities such as mining, hydropower, logging, infrastructure and the new kid on the block, windpower development culminate in a progressive loss and fragmentation of pastures. There are now 14 wind power parks [...]

(Visualisation of proposed wind power megaproject from Vernfosen) Reindeer herders in the South Sami regions in Norway fear for their future, in a story from yesterdays NRK Sami Radio. Reindeer herder Terje Haugen is the head of the Fosen reindeer husbandry district (North of Trondheim). Much of his time over the last few years has been taken up [...]

The annual NBR NRL meeting is now over and Nils Henrik Sara from Guovdageaidnu has been reelected as leader. He has a lot of serious issues to preside over – two that were in the media this weekend were the enormous increase in wind power development plans and another being the gender balance on the board. Arvid Jåma, [...]

The annual meeting of the Sami Reindeer Herders Association of Norway has started in the southern reindeer husbandry area of Trondelag. The theme of the opening day has been mental health issues for reindeer herders, an issue that is generally overlooked, accoridng to Nils Henrik Sara, NBR leader in a  report today in NRK Sami Radio. [...]

Wind power is blowing its way across the windy parts of Europe – such as Sweden, Norway and Scotland. A major seminar in Scotland recently was attended by municipal leaders from Östersund, who were interested in learning how Scots had dealt with mega project windfarm development. At present there are only small scale wind farms [...]