A flicker of irritation ripples across the backs of a herd of reindeer as they are bitten relentlessly by insects on a summer pasture of Sápmi. Having shed their winter coats across the tundra, the reindeer now face an unusually tepid early summer. 

Global heating has thickened the Arctic air with swarms of flies and mosquitoes. Knowing that wind exposure is the best defence, herds must push upwards to higher ground. But these uphill refuges are increasingly under threat. 

When wind farms are erected on upper plateaus, as part of Norway’s green transition plans, they can obstruct reindeer’s seasonal movement, altering how Indigenous Sámi reindeer herders survive climate breakdown.

Expansion

Equinor’s proposed flagship project to electrify Europe’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing plant on Melkøya island is one force increasing pressure for onshore energy infrastructure on Sámi land, including an already confirmed power line, associated grid infrastructure, and proposed wind farm developments.

Norway’s green transition is internationally recognised as a model to follow. However, an ongoing legal appeal by the Sámi Parliament against the Norwegian government, which argues that authorities failed to meaningfully consult the Indigenous Sámi people, demonstrates that tensions remain in the region.

The Melkøya facility processes natural gas from the Snøhvit field in the Barents Sea, delivered to the plant via a 143 kilometre subsea pipeline before being exported as LNG to international markets. Until now, the plant has been powered by gas turbines fuelled by gas from the same field. 

Under Equinor’s proposal, from 2030, those turbines would be replaced with electricity drawn from the mainland grid. This depends on grid infrastructure development, including a new 420 kV power line across northern Sápmi.

Norwegian authorities also publicly listed a suite of 11 wind power projects to be considered for development within the region. These currently remain in the proposal stage.

Jonas Gahr Støre the Norwegian prime minister, said at the project launch that electrification would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 850,000 tonnes a year. This is equivalent to around two per cent of Norway’s annual emissions, according to government estimates.

Numbers

The plans are presented as a valuable effort to prevent climate breakdown. But many environmental critics have argued that the project amounts to greenwashing – describing less a case of decarbonisation than of creative accounting.

Gas no longer burned at Melkøya may instead be exported and combusted elsewhere. Equinor states on its own website: “Another advantage is that gas that would otherwise be burned on the installations can now be better utilised in Europe."

Motvind Norge, a campaign group opposing potential wind developments, argues that this could mean while Norway’s domestic emissions may appear cleaner, the planet’s total carbon load would be largely unchanged.

Norway’s welfare system is still deeply dependent on oil and gas revenues.

Oil Change International noted in a briefing, citing Norway’s Ministry of Oil and Energy, that electrification would extend the plant’s operating life by around 20 years, prolonging fossil fuel dependency – a figure critics say undermines Equinor’s true priority.

Equinor maintains that interactions between gas markets, electricity markets, and the EU emissions quota system mean that electrification will result in overall emission reductions.

Framing

Ole-Anders Turi, a reindeer herder and scholar, describes the project as a case of strategic ignorance and a failure of political honesty.

“Norway’s welfare system is still deeply dependent on oil and gas revenues,” he told The Ecologist. “The authorities should just admit that the electrification of Melkøya is just to extend the time they can get gas and extend the use of Melkøya. 

"Instead, they reframe the industry as climate action. It’s cowardice. A refusal to face the consequences of stating the obvious.”

Despite the disputed environmental benefits of electrifying Melkøya, many Sámi say resistance to any green infrastructure development is routinely framed as an opposition to 'progress'.

Per-Olof Nutti, president of the Saami Council, warned in a report from Amnesty International: “When projects labelled as 'green transition' seek access to our lands, they often make it seem as though Sámi resisting these projects are opposing climate solutions."

Activists report that such blatant misrepresentations can create conditions of harm, expressed through social pressure, online hate speech, and racism directed at Sámi communities.

Claustrophobia

Wind farms, when developed, are widely reported to disrupt reindeer behaviour, affecting grazing patterns, migration routes, and calving. 

Torvald Falch, special advisor to the Sámi Parliament, told The Ecologist that these impacts are well documented in lived experience testimonies, impact assessments, and by expert witnesses.

For Sámi communities, these pressures amount to a double burden. The Arctic is heating several times faster than the global average. Many younger herders have never experienced a 'normal' year, pressuring the adaptability of its entangled human and animal communities.

At the same time, Sápmi is increasingly treated as a testing ground for large-scale green energy infrastructure promoted as a solution to global heating.

Reindeer herders have long navigated environmental uncertainty through deep land-based knowledge and seasonal mobility. But Ole-Anders Turi, whose family have grazed reindeer in the region for generations, says the growing mosaic of developments is eroding that flexibility.

“The ability to move is fundamental to the survival of the herds,” he said. “Wind power fields, power lines, and roads take away that sense of reassurance.”

Historical

There is an irony, Turi adds, in how Sámi knowledge is celebrated in theory while being constrained in practice. Roads, mines, power lines, and tourism infrastructure increasingly fragment and demarcate the landscape.

Across Sápmi approximately 89 per cent of reindeer herding areas are already affected by some form of encroachment, such as buildings or infrastructure, within a 5 km radius, according to Statistics Norway.

The Norwegian Sámi National Federation says blackthorn bogs, hunting grounds, hiking trails and wilderness areas are also affected – crucially impacting not just reindeer herders, but broader communities and ecologies across these landscapes.

The Sámi have endured centuries of colonial oppression through land seizures, forced Christianisation, scientific racism, and assimilation policies.

Materially powerful acts of erecting infrastructure across Sámi land form part of what many activists and human rights organisations describe as a continuation of these harms under a different banner – producing a phenomenon critiqued as 'green colonialism'. 

Integrity

Refusing to concede, in 2024, the Sámi Parliament brought a legal challenge against the Norwegian state. They argued that the authorities had not fully met their obligation to consult Indigenous communities and did not carry out a comprehensive impact assessment that considered the full cumulative impacts of the project.

Falch said: “The Sámi Parliament was not consulted about the Melkøya decision at all. What we were consulted on was the extension of the 420 kV power line.”

“During these consultations, the Sámi Parliament requested to be consulted on the actual Melkøya decision, but we did not receive any response to this request until after the decision had already been made.”

In July 2024, the Oslo District Court dismissed the case and ordered the Sámi Parliament to pay the Ministry of Energy’s legal fees.

Sámi Parliament President Silje Karine Muotka has vowed to appeal the verdict, saying the ruling represents not only a procedural failure but an erosion of Indigenous law. The case is ongoing.

Justice

Sámi representatives argue that consultations were insufficient under international standards. In 1990, Norway ratified International Labour Organisation Convention 169,  which requires governments to sufficiently consult Indigenous peoples, through their representative institution, on decisions affecting their interests. 

On March 19, 2025, the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples released a comprehensive report empathising the need for Norway to uphold free, prior and informed consent during environmental impact assessments affecting Sámi land.

The Sámi Parliament is not calling for new consultation frameworks, but for existing legal obligations to be enforced. For Sámi political leaders and human rights organisations, a just transition does not require new tools, only the political will to honour those already in place.

Questions remain over whether Norway’s drive to meet its Paris Agreement targets has narrowed environmental policy to a fixation on national emissions, at the expense of ecological balance, cultural continuity, and legal justice.

“What is the value of reaching a target on paper,” Turi asked, “if it does not benefit the reality we are immersed in?”

This Author

Izzy Pennington is a researcher and writer specialising in environmental justice and human-wildlife relationships. This report benefited from the time, knowledge, and support of members of the Sámi community in Kautokeino.