The Alta controversy and Sámi rights

Plans to dam the Alta river in Finnmark, flooding Sámi reindeer pastures, drew protesters to a camp at Stilla in 1979 and young Sámi to a hunger strike outside the Norwegian parliament. Police removed hundreds of demonstrators in 1981 and the dam was built, but the struggle changed Norway: it led to a Sámi rights commission, a constitutional amendment in 1988 and the Sámi Parliament, opened at Karasjok in 1989.