my summer in the north

At the Russian Summr Camp we held a demonstration, with two banners, 12 Russians and 7 Finns. We were detained, accused of breaking Russian visa law, and fined. We were not given an interpreter, and were being cross examined during the whole night and following morning until 6 am, in our camp-site. A Norwegian-Russian Environmental Rights Centre recommended us to appeal (this law is brand new, and no one has heard of it) and it is still pending in the Russian bureaucracy.

The demonstration was to put attention to a mountain area, that has not been developed yet, is under threat of being destroyed by a pipeline from the gas project Shtokman in the Barent's Sea. Northwest Arctic Russia, especially the western part of the Kola peninsula is very destroyed already, with dead forests, illegal logging and a vast mining industry. Our argument is that it is reckless and redundant to lay the pipeline through this mountain when 10 miles westward, across Lake Imandra, there is already destroyed nature that you can (if you must) lay the pipeline through.

In the beginning of August, seven of us from Nature & Youth went to Northwest Arctic Russia, to Barents Environmental Summer Camp. This is from my birthday celebration, or possibly from the day before, after we had acted out the famous Norwegian fairytale about the three goats that crossed the bridge, under which there lives a TROLL... (some of you may remember me acting it out before, he he)

Marie used to have my job, and she is very good at helping me know what to do, not least how to do things. The sign on the old barn says Invest in the Railway.

I also held a very introductory lecture on the World Trade Organisation, and I talked about Natur og Ungdom's Russian Project.
In July I was part of the organising committee of Nature & Youth's summer camp in the Norwegian countryside, about two hours drive from Oslo. The camp had about 170 participants, between the age of 13 and 19.