Shortly after the Norwegian stock market closed on 17 June 2026, a few dozen local people from the small west coast town of Vevring crowded around a laptop in a school. Surrounded by childrens drawings and windows looking out over Førde fjord, they listened as news arrived from Oslo. Norways supreme court had ruled against its government: a permit to release mining waste directly into the fjord two miles upstream was illegal, the court said.

The moment marked the end of a 17-year fight, one of Norways most protracted environmental battles in living memory. In Oslo, Ingvild Fonn Asmervik, the project leader for (Friends of the Earth Norway), compared the joy she felt to giving birth to her child. For Anne-Line Thingnes Førsund, a third-generation fisher living on the banks of the fjord in Vevring and a volunteer for the charitys local branch, it was more of a relief. Like a mountain lifting off her shoulders, she said.

These feelings of elation were short-lived. While Førsund and others celebrated, a government lawyer appeared on a television debate show to set out plans for a new temporary permit, and to allow the mine to continue to release waste directly into the fjord in the meantime. Four days later, the mine applied for fresh permission, and in late September, it was granted by Norway`s climate and environment ministry.

“When we heard the pollution would continue, it was like they snatched the carpet from under us,” says Førsund. “We have answered every letter, commented on every consultation, complained whenever we could. We have been knocked down so many times and this could have been the opportunity for change.”While the government insists that it is acting lawfully, critics say the dumping threatens to foul one of Norways most pristine fjords. Others worry that the decision heralds a new wave of permits to pollute Norways fjords in the race to secure critical minerals.

“This is not only about the fjord and us and our lives,” says Førsund. “This is about principles. When you have a government that doesnt respect the supreme court youre changing the system itself.”The move comes just as a wider spotlight is being shone on the issue of polluted waters in Norway. A recent report showed that Norwegian fish farms are filling fjords and other coastal waters with nutrient pollution equivalent to the raw sewage of tens of millions of people each year.

Meanwhile, populations of Atlantic salmon are at a historic low in the country – 155 of Norway`s 450 or so salmon rivers were closed to fishing at the start of the season this year.

Submarine tailings deposition (STD) – known colloquially by Norwegian critics as “fjord dumping” – is the process of pumping crushed rocks and chemical waste into the sea through pipelines hundreds of metres underwater. Proposed as an alternative to disposing of waste on land, the Norwegian government`s own Institute of Marine Research (IMR) warns that STD releases fine particles of toxic waste that can accumulate in smaller sea life and disrupt ecosystems at large.

STD is outlawed in all of North America, Australia, Russia, Brazil, China and most of Europe. The few countries that still permit the practice include Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Turkey.

The Engebø titanium mine, on Førde fjord near Vevring, was first proposed by Nordic Mining in 2006 and the government awarded a permit to release waste into the fjord less than 10 years later. In response, Friends of the Earth Norway launched legal challenges that worked their way up the country`s legal system, arriving at a week-long supreme court hearing in spring 2026. Meanwhile, the mine came online and began releasing waste late in 2024.

Nordic Mining is financed by investors including Japan`s Iwatani Corporation and the British offices of the international banks Morgan Stanley, UBS and Goldman Sachs. Other banks, including Standard Chartered and Citigroup, explicitly ban financing projects using STD.

Nordic Mining did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the Guardian, but said in a social media post shortly after the supreme court decision that it would continue with how it disposed of waste, with the encouragement of Norwegian officials.

“It has been said that our operation is illegal, that we have to close, that our work must stop. That is not the situation,” Nordic Mining said, adding that it was continuing “with the ambition to act responsibly, with respect for the fjords and mountains, and for the local community around us”.

Legal wrangling over the permit came to focus on the EU`s water framework directive (WFD), which applies to Norway as a member of the European Economic Area. The WFD allows industrial activities to pollute water bodies only when there is an “overriding public interest”.

The supreme court ruled that the reasons given when the permit was first awarded were not strong enough. However, the government argues they have grown stronger since the EU added titanium to its list of “critical minerals” in 2020.

“The Norwegian government considers the Engebø project to be of significant importance for Norway and Europe,” a ministry spokesperson said, because “the Engebø mountain contains one of the worlds largest known deposits of rutile, a titanium-bearing mineral. Within Europe, Norway and Ukraine are the only countries with significant resources of this kind.”Legal scholars have questioned this logic. “Thats wrong. A permit exists or it doesn`t, and the supreme court decision is quite clear: the permit is illegal,” says Tarjei Ellingsen Røsvoll, associate professor of administrative and constitutional law at the University of Inland Norway.

“The government is then openly allowing a company to dump a bunch of stuff in a fjord illegally. That is unprecedented; it damages trust and undermines a fundamental structure of constitutional and administrative law. They should take responsibility for having made an invalid and illegal decision, morally and legally.”While Nordic Mining awaited its new three-year permit, it continued to dispose of waste into Førde fjord. Økokrim, Norway`s central office for white collar and environmental crime, is now considering whether to investigate the dumping for illegality.

While there have been few comprehensive studies of the impact of STD on marine ecosystems, scientists have linked heavy metal pollution now present in some fjords to STD decades earlier.

The impact is particularly damaging when the waste is milled into small pieces, according to Terje van der Meeren, a research professor at the IMR, who co-authored the institute`s response to the Engebø mine application and testified during the supreme court hearings.

Back in Vevring, Førsund and other campaigners are now preparing for a fresh legal battle over the temporary waste permit – though dumping is likely to continue for as long as it takes for a new decision to be reached.

She looks back on the first protests against the mine with nostalgia. In one photograph, taken more than a decade ago, protesters gathered for a meal on the banks of the fjord; Førsund`s daughter, now an architect, was only a child. “So many of these people are dead now,” she says.

“The fjord is bigger than us. It has given us food and income and meaning and music and fish and birds for thousands of years. Now it gives us the energy to keep fighting.”