The Bellona Foundation is an international environmental NGO headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with branches in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. Founded in 1986 by Frederic Hauge and Rune Haaland as a

direct action Direct action is a term for economic and political behavior in which participants use agency—for example economic or physical power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a governm ...

protest group to curb Norway's oil and gas industry pollution, it grew to be multi-disciplinary and multinational in scope and maintains offices in

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

. In 2022, Bellona ended activities in Russia and relocated experts to the Vilnius, Lithuania office to assist Ukraine with environmental challenges resulting from the Russian invasion. In 2023, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office recognized Bellona as an "undesirable organization". Bellona works with ecologists, engineers, economists, attorneys, journalists, specialists in the natural and social sciences, to accomplish its objectives.

History

In 1994, the Bellona Foundation's report "Sources of Radioactive Contamination in Murmansk and Archangel Counties" raised serious concerns about the safety of the decommissioned Soviet nuclear-powered submarines after the dissolution of the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. In February 1996, Russian FSB arrested Bellona's Russian expert Alexander Nikitin, a former Soviet naval officer, and charged him with

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...

through espionage for his contributions to Bellona's report on the

nuclear safety Nuclear safety is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "The achievement of proper operating conditions, prevention of accidents or mitigation of accident consequences, resulting in protection of workers, the public and the ...

within the Russian Northern Fleet. The Russian Supreme Court exonerated him in 2000. In 2003, Bellona accessed

radioactive contamination Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of Radioactive decay, radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases (including the human body), where their presence is uni ...

Sellafield Sellafield, formerly known as Windscale, is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste storage, nuclear waste processing and storage and nucle ...

nuclear reprocessing facility in England. At the

2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as the Copenhagen Summit, was held at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 7 and 18 December. The conference included the 15th session of the Conference of the Partie ...

(COP15) in Copenhagen, Bellona presented "101 Solutions to Climate Change". In 2013, Bellona Foundation filed a police report after it learned that a "disposal well in the Norwegian Sea owned by Norway’s state oil company

Statoil Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger, Norway. It is primarily a petroleum company operating in 36 countries with additional investments in renewable energy. In th ...

leaked 3,428 tons of hazardous chemicals and oil-based drilling fluids over six years at the Njord site". In April 2023, Russia declared Bellona as an "undesirable" organization.

Funding

Bellona's yearly spending was 25 million Norwegian Kroner (NOK) in 2001. Amongst the sources: 10 million NOK came from selling advertisements; 6 million NOK was received from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for projects in Russia, and 1 million NOK was received from the Norwegian government for general purposes; 6 million NOK was received from business sector to implement the B7 program; 2 million NOK came from donations and gifts.

Criticism

In Norway, the Bellona Foundation was criticized for "seeking publicity", and in Russia — for accepting funds from the Norwegian government. Some maintain that Bellona damaged its environmental credibility by "cooperating with market agents", transforming it into more of a consultancy for private companies than an environmental NGO.Grendstad, Gunnar.
Unique Environmentalism: A Comparative Perspective
'. New York: Springer, 2006, p.125.

References

External links

Bellona Foundation
''Official website in English, Norwegian and Russian'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Bellona Foundation Environmental organisations based in Norway Foundations based in Norway Anti–nuclear power movement Organizations listed in Russia as undesirable

History

Funding

Criticism

See also

References

Further reading

External links