The owners of a Norwegian wind farm have agreed to pay to end a long-running dispute with indigenous reindeer herders, whose rights a court ruled were being violated by the project.
Sami reindeer herders will receive compensation and new land as part of a deal struck to keep the 255MW Roan Vind project – owned by Norway’s Aneo, Germany's Stadtwerke Muenchen and Nordic Wind Power – online.
The agreement, signed today in Oslo, looks set to be the final chapter of a years-long battle between the herders and two wind projects in the region.
Sami herders claim that noise from the turbines scares away their reindeer and disrupts their ancient hunting traditions.
Norway’s Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that permits for around half the multi-phase wind complex – which encompasses another 1GW project, Fosen Vind – were invalid as they violate the herders’ rights under UN conventions.
There have been a series of rallies against the projects since, with climate activist Greta Thunberg visiting Oslo twice to protest against it.
A mediation process was initiated last year by Norway’s Ministry of Energy to resolve the dispute.
Norway’s Statkraft and its partners, which owned the 1GW Fosen Vind project, struck a December deal to pay the reindeer herders millions of dollars to avoid having to tear down part of the project.
Now a similar agreement has been reached between the Roan Vind project and the reindeer herders.
Aneo said in a statement that Roan Vind will pay NKr7m ($665,000) in annual compensation throughout the concession period, until the end of 2043. That amounts to roughly $12.5m.
The Ministry of Energy will also find additional land for winter grazing outside the Fosen peninsula, with the aim for that to be available by 2026/2027.
“The agreement secures the rights to reindeer herding in Nord-Fosen, both now and in the future,” said Roan Vind general manager Roger Beite Færestrand.
The time since the Supreme Court ruling has been “challenging, especially for the reindeer owners, for whom we have great respect,” he said.
“Their contribution has been decisive in ensuring that we now have a solution, which everyone endorses. Finally, everyone can look ahead.”
