Saving Iceland

Welcome to SavingIceland.org! If you are new to our site you can begin with having a quick look at the About Us section and then read the S.O.S. and the  Saving Iceland Mobilisation Call-Out. Iceland Under Threat shows the wilderness we need to protect and the corporations bent on ruining it. Make sure to enjoy our video and photo galleries, our in-depth magazine Voices of the Wilderness and follow our Twitter feed to keep up to date. And last but not least get some answers to Frequently Asked Questions.

From Survival International – On the 12^th of October the UK government blasted FTSE-100 company Vedanta Resources over its treatment of the Dongria Kondh tribe in Orissa, India.

The damning verdict came after a nine month investigation into a complaint submitted by Survival International against Vedanta’s proposed bauxite mine on the Dongria Kondh’s sacred mountain. The complaint, upheld by the government, was brought under the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises – the key principles for ethical corporate behaviour.

In an unprecedented attack on a major British company, the government ruled that Vedanta, ‘did not respect the rights of the Dongria Kondh’; ‘did not consider the impact of the construction of the mine on the [tribe’s] rights’; and ‘failed to put in place an adequate and timely consultation mechanism’. Devastatingly, it concluded, ‘A change in the company’s behaviour’ is ‘essential’.

Astonishingly, despite repeated requests from the UK government, the company ‘failed to provide any evidence during the examination’. This is the only time a company has refused to participate in an OECD investigation.
Read More

Aluminium giant Alcoa continues to look into the financial prospects of building an aluminium smelter at Bakki outside of Húsavík though the Icelandic government has refused to extend their Statement of Will on the subject.

Tómas Már Sigurðsson, president of Alcoa in Iceland, says the project continues in cooperation with the energy companies and the local council of Norðurþing. They are now working on getting the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) done, which was ordered by the ministry of environment last summer. A suggestion for the assessment was given to the Office of the Icelandic National Planning Agency at the end of September this year. Tómas Már is hoping for the results of the assessment in the spring of 2010.

Read More

Our climate is not their business! – A lecture and open discussion Monday October 12th in room 102, Lögberg, the University of Iceland, at 16:00.

Öskra! – The movement of revolutionary students, presents the COP-15 climate summit in Copenhegen and wants no false solutions based on economical growth at the expence of people and the environment.

From the 7th to 18th of December 2009, the largest ‘climate summit’ ever to be held will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark. This summit has been billed as our ‘last, best hope’ to do something about climate change. But the UN talks will not solve the climate crisis: emissions continue to rise at ever faster rates, while carbon trading allows climate criminals to pollute and profit. It is time to say enough! No more business as usual, no more false solutions!

Read More

At lest 25 people were crushed to death when an under construction chimney at a new power plant being constructed at Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco) in the town Korba in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, collapsed last Wdnesday afternoon. Tens of worker got trapped in the debris. Officials say that s chimney caved in on the workers during construction work at a thermal power plant. Sources quating witnesses said lightning struck the under-construction chimney at about 4 pm, bringing down the huge concrete structure. More than 100 labourers had been engaged in the work when it had begun to rain. The structure collapsed on a store room where workers had taken shelter from the rain.

Balco is a unit of London Stock Exchange-listed Vedanta Plc, whose activities are mostly in India. The company is setting up a 1,200-Mw power plant at its aluminium facility. Sepco, a Chinese company, had bagged the award for the power plant, while GDCL was constructing the 275-metre chimney. The power plant was part of a mega expansion plan. The company was expanding annual capacity by 650,000 tonnes. At present, the company produces 350,000 tpa of aluminium. On completion the capacity will be a million tonnes a year, making Balco the worlds largest producer of aluminium from a single location. Read More

Reception and presentation by Samarendra Das in Centenary Hall, St. Mary’s College, Thursday Oct. 1st, from 18:30 to 21:00.

Mr. Samarendra Das is an Indian national, global activist and research scholar based in London and Orissa. He has been involved for the last sixteen years in grassroots activism with the ‘Dongria Kondh’ and ‘Mahji Kondh’, tribal communities who have lived sustainable and self-sufficient lives for centuries in the mountains of Orissa. Kondh values and their mountains are in risk from multinational companies seeking to capture iron ore and bauxite  for the metal industries. Mr. Das has developed extensive knowledge of transnational corporations, NGO’s and the institutional architecture of the global elite who wield power over the earth’s resources. His academic backgrounds include a ‘first’ first class honors in  mathematics and a master of computer science with distinction. Mr. Das has co-produced films with his brother Amarendra, published books and written over 200 papers in his  mother tongue, Oriya. His work is both technical and artistic, covering culture, identity, conflict and political economy. His recent film with Amarendra, Sept. 2005, Wira Pdika (Earth Worm: Company Man) is feature-length campaign documentary on the resistance of the Orissa Kondhs.

Read More

Read the beginning of this story by clicking here –  Yesterday, the Reykjavík City Council approved Reykjavík Energy’s (O.R.) contract about the company’s selling of their share in H.S. Orka. The share has been purchased by a Canadian geothermal company, Magma Energy, owned by Ross Beaty, a former owner of copper and silver mines companies in Latin America. O.R.’s share was 32% but Magma Energy had already bought 11% in H.S. Orka from Geysir Green Energy (GGE) and therefor owns 43% in the company. Recently, GGE bought the majority share in H.S. Orka from Reykjanesbær council, which means that the access to geothermal energy in the Reykjanes peninsula is now mainly in the hands of private companies. Magma and GGE have already announced ideas of the companies’ unification.

Well over 100 people attended the city council’s meeting yesterday to follow the discussion from the balcony of the council’s main meeting hall. Öskra! – the movement of revolutionary students, had amongst other, called on people to show up and protest against the decision making.  People were very angry and expressed their anger in many different ways; mostly by shouting and interrupting the councilors’ speeches, telling them to get out and calling them traitors. The meeting had to be stopped several times because of the disturbance, which lead to the building’s security guards calling for police assistance. Three men were arrested after one of them threw a role of toilet paper down from the balcony on to the floor were the councilors were sitting. When the police attempted to arrest him, two others tried to de-arrest him, which lead to the arrest of all of them. The arrest was quite brutal, enough to shock many of those who attended the meeting.  Read More

Chinalco, China’s biggest aluminium producer, has shown interest in buying a 32% share in Þeistareykir ehf., a geothermal energy company from the north of Iceland, owned equally by three companies; Landsvirkun (Iceland’s national energy company), Norðurorka and Orkuveita Húsavíkur (O.H. – Húsavík Energy). Norðuorka has shown interest in selling its share and according to information from the Chinesee Embassy in Iceland a committee from Chinalco will go north to Húsavík soon to discuss with those who the purchase concerns. Alcoa and H.S. Orka, which has been bought by the Canadian H.S. Orka, have also shown interest in buying a share in Þeistareykir ehf.

Chinalco owns 10% shares in Rio Tinto-Alcan, which owns an aluminium smelter in Hafnarfjörður, Iceland. Chinalco has been focusing on buying up companies in different metal industries and e.g. recently bought copper mines in Latin America from Ross Beaty, the director of Magma Energy, a Canadian geothermal energy company that is in the process of buying big shares in an Icelandic energy company, H.S. Orka and has mentioned the possibility of buying shares in Geysir Green Energy, the major owner of H.S. Orka.

The coming 1st of October, the memorandum of understanding between Alcoa, the government and Norðurþing county, expires. Norðurþing has announced their interest in renewing their contract with Alcoa, which is still looking for ways to use the geothermal energy from Þeistareykir.  Read More

Magma Energy, a Canadian company, wants to buy a majority share in H.S. Orka, a geothermal energy company based on the Reykjanes peninsula. In July this year Magma Energy bought a 11% share in H.S. Orka from Geysir Green Energy (GGE) and therefor became the first foreign shareholder in an Icelandic energy company. The purchase was a part of a bigger agreement between Reykjanesbær and GGE, which resulted in GGE owning a little more than 50% of H.S. Orka. Around the purchase, Ross Beaty, Magma’s director stated that the company did not plan to become predominant in H.S. Orka or meddle with the management of the company’s power plants.

In the middle of August, Orkuveita Reykjavíkur (O.R. – e. Reykjavík Energy) decided to start discussion with Magma Energy about the latter’s purchase of O.R.’s share in H.S. Orka, which is 32% and would therefor give Magma 43% share in the company and the possibility of increasing it 5%. Magma has bought the very small shares of the communities of Sandgerði and Hafnarfjörður, and has been discussing with communities like Vogar and Grindavík about buying their shares as well. If everything goes like planned, H.S. Orka, which e.g. is the biggest energy provider for the Century Aluminum’s planned smelter in Helguvík, will mostly be owned by to private companies; Magma and GGE, which will own c.a. half of the shares each. Read More

On Tuesday night or yesterday morning, a serious sabotage was done on a GMO testing field in Iceland. The field is owned by ORF Líftækni, a company that was experimenting with growing genetically modified barley for use in medical researches, the skin product industry and medicine development. According to the company’s CEO, Björn Lárus Örvar, all the barley was trashed, which means that the company will not get any harvest this coming fall. The financial loss runs on millions of Icelandic Krónur (ISK).

A group named Illgresi (Weeds) sent out a press release this morning, claiming responsibility for the action, saying:

On the 22nd of June 2009the bio-medical company ORF got permission for experimental planting of GMO medicinal barley in Gunnarsholt, Rángárvallarsýslu. These experiment´s would have paved the way for general planting of genetically modified plants in Iceland. All voices of criticism, both institutions and individuals are made suspect and the little media coverage has been homogeneous and in favour of ORF. Today this permission was revoked. The reasons are amongst others: Read More