Frederic Hauge (born 15 August 1965) is a Norwegian environmental activist. He is head of the

Bellona Foundation The Bellona Foundation is an international environmental NGO headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with branches in Europe and North America. Founded in 1986 by Frederic Hauge and Rune Haaland as a direct action protest group to curb Norway's oil and ...

which he co-founded in 1986. Bellona is an international environmental NGO based in countries such as

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, the United States,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

and also the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

Early activism

Born in

Sandefjord Sandefjord () is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestfold county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Vestfold. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Sandefjord ...

, Norway, Hauge was active in the environmental organization

Natur og Ungdom Natur og Ungdom (NU) which translates to Nature and Youth, also known in English as Young Friends of the Earth Norway, is a Norwegian youth environmental protection organisation. It is the only environmentalist youth organisation in Norway. 7, ...

as a schoolboy, and eventually dropped out of secondary school to concentrate full-time on environmental issues. In 1985 he emerged as leader of a small group of environmental activists who received broad press coverage of their nontraditional methods. Among their focus was pointing out locations where toxic

industrial waste Industrial waste is the waste produced by industrial activity which includes any material that is rendered useless during a manufacturing process such as that of factories, mills, and mining operations. Types of industrial waste include dirt and ...

had been buried. They also fought against plans for disposal of

hazardous waste Hazardous waste is waste that must be handled properly to avoid damaging human health or the environment. Waste can be hazardous because it is Toxicity, toxic, Chemical reaction, reacts violently with other chemicals, or is Corrosion, corrosive, ...

from

titanium Titanium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

mines into Jøssingfjorden. In 1986 he co-founded the

, which continued the activist style. The early history of Bellona was the subject of a book in 1988, ''Bellona. Gudinna som ble vaktbikkje'', by

Ingvar Ambjørnsen Ingvar Even Ambjørnsen-Haefs (born 20 May 1956) is a Norwegian writer. He is best known for his "Elling" tetralogy: ''Utsikt til paradiset'' (1993), ''Fugledansen'' (1995), ''Brødre i blodet'' (1996), and ''Elsk meg i morgen'' (1999). ''Brø ...

1990s

Hauge was the owner of the first

electric car An electric car or electric vehicle (EV) is a passenger car, passenger automobile that is propelled by an electric motor, electric traction motor, using electrical energy as the primary source of propulsion. The term normally refers to a p ...

imported to Norway in 1989. He traveled on

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road for which a fee (or ''Toll (fee), toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented to help recoup the costs of road construction and ...

s without paying the fare until the government confiscated his car. He bought it back and continued to drive on the toll roads still without paying. This went on until the authorities officially decided to eliminate toll charges for electric cars. He was chosen by

Tesla Motors Tesla, Inc. ( or ) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from hom ...

to receive the first

Tesla Model S The Tesla Model S is a battery-electric, four-door full-size car produced by the American automaker Tesla since 2012. The automaker's second vehicle and longest-produced model, the Model S has both received mixed reviews from critics and a ...

all-electric car delivered in Europe to a retail customer in August 2013. In the 1990s Bellona established a Russian branch, with a strong focus on how to deal with the large amounts of nuclear waste that had accumulated over the years. This led to several years of controversies with the Russian authorities.

Alexander Nikitin Aleksandr Nikitin may refer to: * Aleksandr Nikitin (environmentalist) Alexander Konstantinovich Nikitin (; born 16 May 1952) is a Russian former submarine officer and nuclear safety inspector turned environmentalist. In 1996 he was accused of esp ...

, Bellona's representative in

Murmansk Murmansk () is a port city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast in the far Far North (Russia), northwest part of Russia. It is the world's largest city north of the Arctic Circle and sits on both slopes and banks of a modest fjord, Ko ...

was arrested by the

Federal Security Service The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation �СБ, ФСБ России (FSB) is the principal security agency of Russia and the main successor agency to the Soviet Union's KGB; its immediate predecessor was the Federal Counterin ...

and charged 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 Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...

. After several years of court proceedings Nikitin was acquitted. Hauge has later described this period as the toughest fight in the history of Bellona, and with the outcome he was most proud of.

Later years

Over the years Hauge and Bellona has developed a more pragmatic approach, with an emphasis on finding solutions through collaboration with the industry. He has also participated in

workgroups for drafting new policies on

climate and energy In the 21st century, the Earth's climate and its energy policy interact and their relationship is studied and governed by a variety of national and international institutions. The relationships between energy-resource depletion, climate change, ...

. He appeared on ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine's list of "

Heroes of the Environment Heroes of the Environment was an annual list of notable environmentalists chosen and compiled by ''Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, ...

" in October 2007.

References

External links

Bellona.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hauge, Frederic 1965 births Living people People from Sandefjord Norwegian environmentalists Nature and Youth activists