Photo source: ©© Dans Le Grand Bleu
Excerpts;
The question of whether Norway should allow prospecting in the waters around Lofoten’s 1,000 or so islands, whose snow-dusted, jagged black mountains rise up like frozen waves in between small, colourful fishing villages, has pitted environmentalists and some fishermen against the country’s mighty energy sector.
Oil and gas production along Norway’s long coastline has over the past four decades catapulted the once impoverished Scandinavian country to become one of the world’s richest nations, ranking seventh in terms of oil exports and second for natural gas.
But while southwestern towns bordering the prosperous North Sea fields have long boomed, and wealth has begun flooding into the Arctic region bordering Barents Sea oil and gas fields, a small area sandwiched in the middle remains off limits to prospecting…
