Lithouse Podcast

Just weeks after the historical film Ellos Eatnu/Let the River Flow had premiered, lead actress and activist Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen was back in chains – for real, this time. Together with fellow Sami activists, she barricaded the Department of Oil and Energy, to protest that the authorities have done nothing in the 500 days since Norway’s Supreme Court ruled that the wind park in Fosen violates the human rights of Sami reindeer herders in the area.South African Nonhle Mbuthuma has also fought for her people’s land and rights. Together with her community, the indigenous group in Pondoland, she took the Australian mining company Transworld Energy and Minerals to court – and won.Hætta Isaksen and Mbuthuma both fight a double fight, for nature and for indigenous people’s right to their culture and traditions. For many indigenous activists, the environmental struggle is seen as an integrated part of the fight against extractivism – extracting natural resources for export and sale – and that against colonialism.F