Saving Iceland

Who is in power? Naalakkersuisut or Alcoa?

Last week’s meeting between members of the Greenland Government (Naalakkersuisut) and Alcoa clearly shows the power relationship between the industry giant and our nation, that has characterized the project’s development from the beginning, Alcoa dictates and Naalakkersuisut obey across the population.

This form of government is undemocratic and demeaning to our people who are still recovering from 250 years of colonial rule.

Alcoa has made it clear to Naalakkersuisut that a condition to continue the aluminum project in Maniitsoq is the issue of cheap foreign labor will be resolved immediately. Read More

This morning, big banners were hanged on a building in Copenhagen saying: ,,Aluminium Industry is destroying all major Icelandic rivers!” A big advertisment from Icelandair Airline Company, showing Icelandic rivers, was hanging on this same wall last week.

The construction of the planned new Century aluminium smelter in Helguvík and Alcoa’s smelter in Húsavík, will lead to damming of more glacial rivers and geothermal areas. Today it looks like dams will be built in Þjórsá River, Tungnaá, Skjálfandafljót and Jökulsá á Fjöllum; only for further heavy industry projects.

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Photo of Nuuk by sobergeorge

11 January 2008

Saving Iceland received this urgent call for help from Greenland. The sentiments here seem quite contrary to those of Alcoa’s deluded CEO, Alain Belda, who intends to bring an “environmentally-friendly smelter [to Greenland] that adheres to our stringent values and delivers sustainable development”* or Alcoa’s Mr Wade “Kárahnjúkar-is-not-in-the-Highlands” Hughes who stated that Alcoa “have been well accepted by the people [in Greenland].”** In Iceland we are well aware of the collusion between mega-corporations like Alcoa and the corporate media, in manufacturing consent for their projects rather than stimulating thoughtful debate. As Alcoa plan a smelter in Greenland which will start off slightly larger than their Fjardaál monster in Iceland, there is no time to lose, Greenland must be defended.
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The Aluminium project in Greenland involves a smelter to be placed most possibly in Maalutu on the western shore of Nuuk Fiord plus 3 hydropower projects one in the bottom of Nuuk fiord, one in the bottom of Majoqqaq in the bottom of S�ndre Isortoq and one in the river running from Tasersiaq most possible by damming Sarfartup Kuua, producing ~600 MW. Plus >100km of wires crossing some of the most precious caribou hunting grounds. The aim is to produce ~350.000 tonnes of Aluminium per year and create ~700 permanent jobs. Read More

On the 12th of September 2007, the Global Day of Action Against Heavy Industry, people in South Africa, Iceland, Trinidad, Denmark, New York, Holland and the UK protested against the heavy industrialisation of our planet. This marked the first coordinated event of a new and growing global movement that began at the 2007 Saving Iceland protest camp in Ölfus, Iceland. The common target of these protests against heavy industry was the aluminium industry, in particular the corporations Alcan/Rio-Tinto and Alcoa. Read More

9 August 2007

This morning Saving Iceland received this message from Danish friends of Icelandic nature:

“Last night, the 8th of August, the embassy of Iceland in Copenhagen, Denmark, was targeted for its complicity in the ecocide of Iceland’s precious wilderness. Read More

     

Hálslón, Kárahnjúkar, October 2006

A summer of International dissent and action against Heavy Industry – swarming around Iceland from the 6th of July 2007

Updated July 10th. The campaign to defend Europe’s vastest remaining wilderness continues. After the direct action camps in Iceland’s mountain highlands in the summers of 2005 and 2006 against the Kárahnjúkar dam and ALCOA’s Reydarfjordur aluminium smelter, the Saving Iceland campaign moves on to bring Iceland’s aluminium Heavy Industrialisation to a halt.

New plans for dams, power plants, aluminium smelters and other forms of heavy industry need to be stopped. The culprits include corporations such as ALCOA, ALCAN, Century Aluminum, Hydro, Rusal, Impregilo, Bechtel, Barclays, Mott McDonald, etc… Iceland, with it’s vast geothermal and megahydro possibilities, is a new frontier for cheap energy craving industrial moguls who see nothing worth saving in Iceland’s legendary wilderness.

This camp will bring together activists from all over the world, including activists from social movements in India, South America, Africa, Europe and North America. Stopping the industrialisation and ecological destruction of the last unspoilt country in the west would be a major victory for the green movement and a new incentive for a global movement against industrialisation and ecocide. Join us. Read More

In this book Bent Flyvbjerg and others outline the exact blueprint of the methods employed by the Icelandic authorities to drive through their energy policies. Original edition is in Danish.

“Megaprojects and Risk provides the first detailed examination of the phenomenon of megaprojects. It is a fascinating account of how the promoters of multi-billion dollar megaprojects systematically and self-servingly misinform parliaments, the public and the media in order to get projects approved and built. It shows, in unusual depth, how the formula for approval is an unhealthy cocktail of underestimated costs, overestimated revenues, undervalued environmental impacts and overvalued economic development effects. This results in projects that are extremely risky, but where the risk is concealed from MPs, taxpayers and investors. The authors not only explore the problems but also suggest practical solutions drawing on theory, experience and hard, scientific evidence from the several hundred projects in twenty nations and five continents that illustrate the book. Accessibly written, it will be the standard reference for students, scholars, planners, economists, auditors, politicians and interested citizens for many years to come.” Read More

Orion Magazine
March / April 2004

An important article which provides useful historical background.

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The proposed dams in Iceland are likely to completely destroy the nest sites of 1050-1350 pairs of Pink-footed Geese (equivalent to four per cent of the UK wintering population). In addition, thousands more are likely to be affected less directly by impacts such as the effects of hydrological changes on the birds.

The Icelandic Government will put thousands of pairs of nesting Pink-footed Geese at risk by sanctioning two hydro-electric schemes, BirdLife International said today. Iceland has almost 90 per cent of the global population of this small goose, almost all of which winter in the UK, mainly in East Anglia and Scotland [1,2].

“BirdLife International estimates that as many as one in seven of the Pink-footed Geese that visit the UK in winter could be affected or displaced by these hydro-electric schemes”, said BirdLife Europe’s Conservation Manager, Szabolcs Nagy. “The two affected sites – Utherad and Thjarsarvar Important Bird Areas (IBAs) – are globally recognised, but Iceland seems determined to renege on its international conservation commitments and to damage and destroy substantial portions of these sites.” [3,4,5] Read More