Lessons Learned from The Saami’s Victory on Geoengineering Oversight
A Review of Europe's remaining Indigenous people's fight against Geoengineering
Five Year Review: The Saami’s Victory - Redefining the Conversation on Geoengineering Oversight
In the frosted landscapes of northern Scandinavia, where the Aurora dances over ancient reindeer pastures, the Saami people stand as Europe’s last enduring indigenous community. Five years ago in Sweden, a combination of regulatory pressures, local opposition, and widespread public concern errupted over a geoengineering proposal in the in Saami Kiruna territory of Sweden. This led to a collaborative effort of resistence among various groups, with the Saami indigenous activists at the forefront, successfully halting the controversial geoengineering experiment, funded by Bill Gates, (with an initial investment of $4.5 million noted in 2010 for early-stage research). This funding was directed toward scientists like Ken Caldeira and David Keith, who were exploring solar geoengineering concepts, including stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) and this threatened to impose untested experimental technologies and chemicals over Saami ancestral lands.
The saga involved Harvard’s Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx), conducting research designed to test solar radiation management by releasing calcium carbonate into the stratosphere. When they were due to start testing in the United States, in 2021, Covid was causing testing delays, so they planned instead to test in Sweden.
While the experiment aimed to start tests over Saami territory in Kiruna, the individuals behind Harvard’s SCoPEx project completely disregarded any permits or consulting procedures with Swedish officials, or with the Saami people and Saami Council. Therefore, the proposed testing faced significant opposition from the Swedish people, local and indigenous groups, including The Saami Council, as well as broader public concerns.
The Saami, alongside environmental allies, had to publicly challenge the Harvard project and its Advisory Committee to initiate a consultation process, highlighting a fundamental issue: the process was an afterthought.
This situation illustrates a broader problem in geoengineering and other critical areas, where private institutions and wealthy individuals operate as de facto governments as stated by Patrick Mazz in his 2021 report on this story.
Geoengineering experimental operations means a few people in the United States make decisions that impact not only billions of people, especially indigenous and those who work with the land, often without environmental risk impact assessments, democratic accountability or prior consultation with the nations communities and governments in the countries, where these experiments take place, this has been an ongoing violation of human rights for fifty years according to CIEL’s briefing report which documents experimens going back to the 1970s.
Photo: The Saami Council / Piera Heaika Muotka
The Saami Council, representing the reindeer-herding communities across Norway to Russia, sent a letter on February 24, 2021, to the SCoPEx Advisory Committee, expressing opposition not only to the experiment but to the broader concept of geoengineering research without international consensus. The letter was co-signed by leaders from the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, Friends of the Earth Sweden, and Greenpeace Sweden, following earlier statements from other environmental groups. No prior consultation had been made with the Saami or other Swedish stakeholders.
The Saami have valid reasons for their apprehension about aerial activities above their lands. The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster brought winds that deposited radiation onto their villages and reindeer grazing areas, leading to the slaughter of thousands of animals. Even decades later, reindeer meat still requires radiation testing.
By March 2021, in response to these mounting concerns, including vocal opposition from the Saami and environmental organizations, the experiment was indefinitely postponed. This cancellation came after delays, including a suspended test flight in Kiruna, Sweden, in 2021, due to growing public criticism.
What had started as a technical demonstration evolved into a larger important debate on democratic oversight and the ethical implications of geoengineering.
Now, in 2025, SCoPEx remains indefinitely grounded. The Saami’s decisive intervention has not only halted the experiment but ignited an international movement demanding inclusive decision-making and robust democratic oversight in geoengineering research.
If the geoengineering experiments were allowed to go ahead, this experiment may have detrimentally impacted the Saami and their reindeer way of life. The Reindeer primarily graze on lichen, a symbiosis of a fungus and a green algae. This lichen is a significant food source for reindeer, especially during winter when other vegetation is scarce and it is also a bioindicator for pristine air, geoengineering over these forests would have contaminated the air, damaged the trees and therefore the lichen, reducing the reindeer’s main food source.
Swedish Saami and Reindeer Source
Mounting Scientific Evidence on Environment and Human Health Risks
In the years since the Saami victory, scientific and environmental law inquiries into stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) has intensified, and so has the evidence and warnings over environmental contamination and human health risks of geoengineering experiments globally. The Center for International Environmental Law, (CIEL), published a briefing report, on The Risks of Geoengineering: Accelerating Biodiversity Loss and Compounding Planetary Crises (October 2024). The briefing report contains a list of over 158 references of scientific research papers into the impact of geoengineering on both marine and terrestrial ecosystems as we as human health and human rights violations.
This is the first groundbreaking report of its kind, backed by Environmental Lawyers, the first in-depth analysis of the Risks of Geoengineering on disappearing Biodiversity of the Planet and detrimental impact on Human Health.
Solutions imposed from above, without democratic consent, are no solutions at all:
Since these Geoengineering experiments are the only environmental experiments that have somehow over fifty years, mysteriously evaded environmental risk assessments, which should be required by law for most experiments that have an obvious environmental and human impact, it bodes the question: why have environmental risk and impact assessments been evaded for every single experiement that has been carried out? How was this allowed to be the case for so long? Meanwhile, these experiments continue around the Earth without consent of nations or communities, which are grave human rights violations, billions of people are being experimented on. While evidence is eluding to irriversable damage to terrestrial and marine ecosystems, insect and bird populations, damage to tree roots and tree bark, damage to soil, marine ecosystems, water cycles agricultural systems, weather manipulation aside from the damage to human health. (Read more on the culprits and financiers behind geoengineering and ingredients here)
The CIEL briefing report debunks the myths used by a handful of oligarchs to excuse their practice of geoengineering in the guise of philanthropy to mitigate climate change.
CIEL have comprehensively exposed the truth about the harm that geoengineering is causing the planet and human health in favour of creating a space to focus on climate change and a call to urgently cease all geoengineering experiments. The CIEL report addresses and debunks several myths commonly used to justify geoengineering as a viable solution to climate change.
These emerging studies echo the Saami’s initial concerns: geoengineering is not merely a technical experiment but a high-stakes gamble orchestrated by a few oligarchs with far-reaching planetary consequences and zero environmental risk assessments. In December 2024, scientific advisers to the European Commission recommended a moratorium on solar geoengineering efforts across the EU. They emphasized that these technologies are untested and could lead to unforeseen ecological consequences, advocating instead for a focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions as the primary solution to climate change.
In October 2024, over 60 climate scientists criticized the use of carbon offsets by corporations, stating that such approaches are "ineffectual" and delay the transition to "real zero" emissions. They emphasized the need for genuine reductions in greenhouse gas emissions rather than relying on offsetting schemes. Meanwhile, what really drives the agenda for zero emission? Since Carbon is the basis for all Life, wouldn’t Zero Carbon mean Zero Life? There are few who really understand the climate change debate, for a deeper dive read Decoding Climate Change: Is the Narrative Driven by Science or Power?
The Saami’s Lasting Influence
For the Saami—Europe’s remaining indigenous community, the threats they face are deeply personal. Their way of life, intertwined with the rhythms of the land and sky, has been repeatedly tested. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster left enduring scars on their reindeer herds and traditional livelihoods. Their brave stand against SCoPEx in 2021 transformed local protest into a global rallying cry. Indigenous groups from the Arctic to the Amazon might now be inspired by the Saami’s success, in their own battles against top-down geoengineering interventions.
The SCoPEx controversy highlights the potent influence of private funding on weather manipulation in climate science, which results in The Science for Profit Model, or biased claims and research.
The air we breath and the atmosphere belongs to all of us. No individual, single nation, corporation, or scientist should be running unmonitored experiments with it or deciding its fate or be interferring with it at such a critical level. Those that have been getting away with this till now, may face being held accountable in the near future for violations against human rights, the rights of Nature, and Ecocidal laws.
Possible Steps for Haulting Geoengineering in your area:
Establish a research and regulatory body to collect data and evidence on current experiments in your area: Citizen Scientists may be recording and collecting data from soil, plants, wildlife, animals, rivers, and researching possible connections of impact on human health, these can be used in legal evidence against the continuation of existing experiments. Work with local organizations open to sharing the same goal. Arrange meetings and consolidate and record data into an archive from various organizations or individuals in your area for future criminal actions and law suits. All of these local, national and international actions may contribute to creating an international treaty on haulting geoengineering and protects the rights of Nature, Planet Earth, Biodiversity, Ecosystem Health and Human Health as well as affected ecosystems, ecosystem recovery and communities affected.
Transparent Funding Disclosure: campaign for funding disclosure-The public require full disclosure of private investments in geoengineering projects to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure accountability. ( I have provided some information I researched in the following article link Decoding Geoengineering, its quite challenging finding transparency in funding).
Inclusive Decision-Making: Empower local and indigenous communities with decision making powers to hault experiments conducted in or near their territories as a violation of human rights and rights of nature under Ecocide laws, (with aerosol, geoengineering or releasing insects such as bioengineered mosquitoes and insects that will inevitibly affect human and animal health).
Full Disclosure and Transparency on Geoengineering Ingredients: As with any environmental impact assessment full transparency should be actioned on ingredients and their effect on human and ecosystem health if known, along with rigorous evidence of argued benefits if any, ( To date there has been no transparency on ingredients or full public disclosure on any of these points, why?).
Rigorous Impact Assessments: Mandate and lobby local and international organizations and governments for comprehensive environmental and socio-economic impact studies before any geoengineering experiments would ever be allowed to proceed. Meanwhile, show proponents of geoengineering the CIEL report, since no one can refute 158 scientific reseach papers and the final conclusion of this briefing.
Lessons Learned
Reflecting on the Saami resounding victory to hault geoengineering in their territory, not only reaffirms their role as guardians of their ancestral land and heritage but also demonstrates what communities and organisations can do when working together to achieve a shared goal. This is important in the momentum to stop further geoengineering experiments around the world and reshapes global debates about who controls our skies and our planet’s future.
The Saami’s story has not only shown their strength and resilence, it has redefined the conversation around geoengineering. Their unwavering commitment to ethical governance has shifted the focus from oligarch agendas to community and collective responsibility to protect our environment and heritage, our very connection to the land and nature and all fellow species and to protect our own health as well as planetary health in the process. As the world begins to grapple with the escalating challenges of haulting geoengineering to restore natural balance in ecosystem health and human health, the Saami legacy stands as a guiding beacon of hope.
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References
Saami Council. (n.d.). Cultural unit. https://www.saamicouncil.net/en/cultural-unit
Maza, Patrick. (2021, April 5). How the Saami Indigenous people fended off Gates-funded geoengineering experiment. CounterPunch. https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/04/05/how-the-saami-indigenous-people-fended-off-gates-funded-geoengineering-experiment/
Evolve to Ecology News. The Saami Indigenous People Triumphed with Halting Gates-funded Geoengineering Experiment. May 20, 2021. An early account of the Saami Council’s successful campaign to stop the SCoPEx experiment in Sweden, highlighting indigenous resistance. https://evolvetoecologynews.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/the-saami-indigenous-people-triumphed-with-halting-gates-funded-geoengineering-experiment/
Evolve to Ecology News. Center for International Environmental Law Expose the Dangers of Geoengineering. October 22, 2024. An article summarizing findings from the Center for International Environmental Law, highlighting the ecological and legal risks posed by geoengineering technologies.
https://evolvetoecologynews.wordpress.com/2024/10/22/center-for-international-environmental-law-expose-the-dangers-of-geoengineering/Evolve to Ecology News. Decoding Geoengineering: A Planet-Sized Laboratory. March 5, 2025. A critical exploration of geoengineering’s global implications, questioning the ethics of large-scale atmospheric experiments.
https://evolvetoecologynews.wordpress.com/2025/03/05/decoding-geoengineering-a-planet-sized-laboratory/Evolve to Ecology News. Decoding Climate Change: Is the Narrative Driven by Science or Power? March 5, 2025. An analysis of how power dynamics shape climate discourse, with a focus on private influence over scientific agendas.
https://evolvetoecologynews.wordpress.com/2025/03/05/decoding-climate-change-is-the-narrative-driven-by-science-or-power/Shaw, Carlita. The Silent Ecocide Redux: The Environmental Crisis is a Crisis of Human Consciousness. 2024. A book examining the deeper philosophical and ecological roots of environmental degradation, including the risks of geoengineering. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKTNDTL1
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