The Sami parliament, representing indigenous people also known as Lapps, has convinced Norway’s second largest pension fund to ditch the oil pipeline project.
Representatives of the Sami Parliament in Norway for the period 2013-2017. President Vibeke Larsen stands in the center of the front row. Photograph: Kenneth Haett
In an act of international solidarity between indigenous peoples, the Sami parliament in Norway has persuaded the country’s second largest pension fund to withdraw its money from companies linked to a controversial oil project backed by Donald Trump.
The project to build the 1,900km Dakota Access oil pipeline across six US states has prompted massive protests from Native American activists at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.
This week, after lobbying by the Sami parliament, Norway’s local authority pension fund KLP announced it would sell of shares worth $58m in companies building the pipeline.
Vibeke Larsen, president of the Sami parliament, said the pension fund announced the move when she arrived at a meeting in Oslo to discuss Dakota Access.
“We feel a strong solidarity with other indigenous people in other parts of the world, so we are doing our part in Norway by putting pressure on the pension funds,” she told the Guardian.
US news | The Guardian | Rachel Fixsen
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