The Bellona Foundation is an international environmental NGO based in Norway. Founded in 1986 as a direct action protest group, Bellona has become a recognised technology and solution-oriented organization with offices in Oslo, Brussels, Washington D.C., St. Petersburg and Murmansk. Altogether, some 75 engineers, ecologists, nuclear physicists, economists, lawyers, political scientists and journalists work at Bellona.

Bellona’s main office is located in Grünerløkka in central Oslo. A large, white brick house on the shore of the Akers River is “home” to about thirty employees. Represented among these employees are a wide variation of disciplines, from nuclear physicists, to engineers, economists, lawyers, advisors and journalists―a multifaceted consortium of individuals that enables us to address the challenges we face from different angles.

Bellona Europa seeks to influence the making of EU legislation through alliances with other NGOs, industry, academics and progressive politicians, particularly members of the European Parliament.

Since 1996, Bellona USA has primarily worked with challenges related to decommissioned submarines and the storage of radioactive waste in Russia. Today the main objective of Bellona USA is to encourage the United States to tackle climate change now.

In the latter half of the 1990s, Russian society was confronted with a new problem: activists WHO WERE openly distributing information about threats to the environment began to be persecuted by the very agencies responsible for causing these threats.

The history of the Norwegian environmental foundation Bellona’s activities in the Murmansk region in Russia’s north dates back nearly two decades ago. In 1990, a vessel called Genius tried to approach Novaya Zemlya, an Arctic Ocean archipelago that hosted one of the soon-to-be-defunct Soviet Union’s nuclear test ranges. It was detained and sent back to Norway. This, however, was hardly a deterrent to the crew of young Norwegian environmentalists on board: Soon enough they were devoting their efforts to studying in detail the activities of the various nuclear sites in the northwestern territory of the neighbouring country.

The last issue of TIME magazine presents Frederic Hauge, President of The Bellona Foundation, as one of some 40 selected heroes of the environment around the world. Hauge says this is a recognition of the work of the entire organisation.

An international partnership of environmental organisations formed by the Center for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA) in Argentina and the Bellona Foundation headquartered in Norway, has filed a Specific Instance complaint citing breaches to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises by Nordea Bank, the Nordic region’s largest bank, concerning its involvement in Botnia’s pulp mill investment in Uruguay.