The Norwegian Supreme Court has ruled that a license and expropriation permit granted to two projects in the giant Fosen Vind onshore wind farm development in Norway are invalid.
The case concerned the question of whether the development of two Fosen projects, Storheia and Roan, violate Sami reindeer herders’ rights to cultural practice according to the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights.
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the rights have been violated, and that the wind farm decisions are invalid.
It added that, for this reason, the discretion to determine compensation for the intervention was refused.
Fosen Vind general manager Tom Kristian Larsen described the decision as a “surprise”.
He said: “The Norwegian authorities gave us a final license after a long and thorough licensing process where all affected parties were consulted, and where the relationship to reindeer husbandry was particularly emphasised in the application process.
“We will now await the Ministry’s processing of this before we make any further comments.”
In 2010, the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate made a decision on a license for Roan and Storheia, among others, which are located in the Fosen reindeer grazing district.
The reindeer owners claimed that the development violated their rights to cultural practice, but were not upheld in the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy’s appeal decision from 2013, the court said.
The case then went to the court but Fosen Vind was granted permission to start construction, and the projects were completed in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
The court decided that it is “clear that reindeer husbandry is a form of protected cultural practice”.
It added that it “took as its point of departure the Court of Appeal’s conclusion that the winter grazing areas at Storheia and Roan have in practice been lost to reindeer husbandry, and that the development will therefore threaten the reindeer husbandry industry’s existence at Fosen if no compensatory measures are taken”.
The court said it agreed with Fosen Vind that the consideration of ‘green shift’ and increased renewable energy production is important.
“However, because there were other – and for reindeer husbandry less intrusive – development alternatives that could take care of this consideration, in this case there was no question of a collision between environmental considerations and the reindeer owners’ right to cultural practice.”