By Lowana Veal
REYKJAVIK, Aug 6 2005 (IPS)

The police have closed down a camp set up to protest against construction of the Kárahnúkar hydroelectric power plant in Iceland.

The camp had been set up close to the site of a 630 MW dam being constructed in the eastern highlands, on the other side of the country to capital Reykjavík, to provide cheap electricity for an aluminium plant. The plant operated by the firm Alcoa aims to produce 322,000 tonnes of aluminium a year.

The protestors have not given up, though. After they were told to leave last week, three farmers offered them use of their land to camp on. The protestors accepted one of these offers, but the new site is about 100 km away from the plant.

The original camp set up Jun. 21 was intended to last until at least the end of August. But after 25 protestors stopped work at the site for five hours by chaining themselves to vehicles last week, the authorities decided they had had enough. The Church was forced to withdraw permission for the protestors to camp on their land, and the protestors were asked to leave.

A similar action had taken place the previous week. Work was then stopped for three hours as protestors chained themselves to vehicles and blocked access roads. On that occasion the police eventually ordered the workers to start up the bulldozers to which protestors had chained themselves.

Most of the protestors are British, with some also from the United States, Sweden, Poland and Germany. Of the 40 present when the camp was dismantled, only two were Icelanders, there mostly to liaise with the press and authorities.

Action has been resumed from the new camp. Protestors walked onto the dam site and hung up banners condemning the construction. Later they climbed cranes at the aluminium construction site, stopping work there for four hours.

Visitors to the protest camp have been surprised to see how well equipped it is. The demonstrators have large tents and sophisticated equipment for making videos. One woman joked in a recent newspaper article that the protestors had better facilities than the workers at the plant, who have had to put up with difficult living conditions since work on the dam project started in 2003.

The protest actions have been far more radical than a typical Icelandic demonstration, which usually means no more than a vigil or perhaps a march and rally, and always with full police cooperation. The recent actions were so new that a new Icelandic word had to be coined – “lock-on”.

Other actions have included spray-painting road signs, machinery and vehicles, and tearing up publicity leaflets about the project at the Kárahnjúkar visitors centre. Before the camp was set up in June, several protestors invaded a conference on aluminium and threw green skyr (a dairy product akin to yoghurt) at panellists. Icelandic authorities consider this violence.

The companies involved in the projects have called for more police presence and increased security measures at the dam site. “These people don’t know the codes of conduct for the site,” said Hrönn Pétursdóttir, spokesperson for Alcoa in Iceland. “They go up onto high cranes in windy weather and driving rain. We are concerned that those in the cranes could have injured themselves.”

The Kárahnjúkar dam project has been controversial for a number of years. Most environmental damage is feared when the Hálslón dam becomes functional late next year. Soil erosion and wind-borne soil as a result of the construction may affect reindeer, birds, vegetation and seals in a 3,000 sq. km area, environmentalists say. The number of reindeer in the construction site area has already dropped dramatically as they shy away from extra traffic.

Kárahnjúkar is not the only focus of the protestors. “We’re against the damming of all the major rivers in Iceland, which will be dammed purely to generate power for the international aluminium industry,” protestor Ólafur Páll Sigur_sson said. “Iceland provides electricity at throw-away prices to aluminium companies.”

The Icelandic government says it plans to dam more rivers to fuel more aluminium plants. Construction of another aluminium plant is likely in the south-west or the north of Iceland.

Icelandic authorities say that from the environmental point of view, it is better to fuel aluminium plants with renewable energy sources rather than nuclear power or coal-fired stations, which are the main electricity sources in most countries. And as Iceland has abundant renewable energy sources, it seems sensible to use them for fuelling aluminium smelters.

The bauxite used to make aluminium has to be imported. Iceland’s selling point is the power from renewable energy sources.

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