Nature in Minds Jacques Gandebeuf Meeting Icelanders, Swedes and Norwegians

Nature in minds Jacques Gandebeuf meeting Icelanders, Swedes and Norwegians Editors: Elfar Loftsson, Ulrik Lohm & Páll Skúlason Tema V Report 3 Nature in minds Jacques Gandebeuf meeting Icelanders, Swedes and Norwegians Editors: Elfar Loftsson, Ulrik Lohm & Páll Skúlason ISBN 9-85643-06-8 ISSN 08-966X © Tema V, 006 Lay-out: Dennis Netzell Print: LiU-Tryck, Linköping, 006 Department of Water and Environmental Studies Linköpings universitet Table of contents Preface 5 Debates in Iceland 7 The emotion of returning home 8 Fascination 10 On the elements 13 Fear 17 The school 21 The town 23 Fishermen 27 Farmers 30 The memory of places 33 On Visual Pollution 38 Tourists and Tourism 42 Trees 49 The lupine question 55 On Conservationists 57 On moderation 60 Sweden: Highway 50 and the trucks... 66 Introduction 66 Between Tåkern and Omberg 70 The song of the schoolchildren 116 Vadstena 118 The meeting 131 The man of the reeds 147 Refl ections 150 Norway Fears Nothing 159 The return to the hut 159 In the indolent Bergen... 161 Nature and Literature 166 The new spirit and the old houses 171 People in Måløy 174 Turid and the memory of the places 183 When the nutshell cracks 189 Eight sign boards for calming anxiety 192 “The most dirty business of Norway” 196 The golden refl ection of Lofoten 200 The fi rst ecologists have become old 207 “If he did not exist, he should be invented” 210 Asking the right questions 213 The psychodrama of the whale 217 Conclusion 221 Lists of interviews 224 Interviews in Iceland 1996 224 Interviews in Sweden 1997 225 Interviews in Norway 2000 226 Epilogue 228 Páll Skúlason Preface The series of interviews presented in this book were originally conceived as a part of a wider project, investigating the ways in which Nordic people relate to nature. That project, entitled “Nature, National Identity and Environmental Policy in the Nordic Countries”, was initiated in 995 by Elfar Loftsson and Ulrik Lohm from the University of Linköping; Páll Skúlason and Þorvarður Árnason from the University of Iceland; and Lars Henrik Schmidt from the University of Århus. The project was intended from the outset to be inter- disciplinary, with sociological, anthropological and philosophical methods to be applied in the investigation. Originally, the project involved three Nordic countries: Sweden, Denmark and Iceland. Parts of the project were underta- ken in all three countries so that it would be possible to compare the results, whilst other parts were carried out separately in each country. The largest common sub-project was a questionnaire survey that was carried out in 997 and investigated views of nature, and environmental concerns, amongst the general public in Sweden, Denmark and Iceland. In connection with the questionnaire survey, it was decided to invite an experienced journalist to join in the project and to ask him to interview people with various backgrounds, in order to elicit from them, in a personal manner, their ways of valuing and relating to nature. In addition to being of interest in themselves, the interviews were intended to complement the other parts of the project. Páll Skúlason had worked earlier with Jacques Gandebeuf when he came to Iceland in the wake of the volcanic eruption in the Westman Islands in 97 to interview people about their experiences of living in a close 5 Páll Skúlason and dangerous relationship with nature. Thus, Páll knew about Jacques´ skills as an interviewer, his great experience as an environmentalist, and his remar- kable talent as a writer; and it was agreed to ask him to do the job. He accepted the assignment, and in this book the reader is presented with the results. Jacques Gandebeuf was born and brought up in Clermont-Ferrand, in the centre of France. He studied law and economic history before turning to journalism. From 966 to 99 he worked as a major reporter and edito- rialist in the great regional journal Républicain Lorrain, published in Metz in the north of France. During this period, he covered all the great events in the world, traveling to more than 80 countries. He also become an active mem- ber of the association of journalists and writers for ecology and wrote exten- sively on environmental issues. After retiring in 99 he has written some ten books, among them My Father’s Accent, which is a work of fiction on the linguistic problems of Lorraine, and three books on the experiences of people in that region during the two world wars. A specialist of European affairs, his personal interests bear particularly upon music and also upon sculpting, an art at which he himself excels. In connection with the Nordic project, Jacques conducted his first series of interviews in Iceland in 996 and a second series in Sweden in 997. For various reasons, he was unable to conduct any interviews in Denmark before the project came to an end. In the year 000, however, the opportunity arose to survey Norwegian views of nature, thanks to the assistance of Gun- nar Skirbekk at the University of Bergen, and the interviews contained in the present volume thus include the perspectives of three Nordic nations. These interviews were conducted in the period when environmental issues of all sorts were for the first time in history commanding public attention. Since then these issues have become progressively more and more the concern of public debates. In these debates what is most important are the various sentiments, feelings and worries that people have, and may share, all over the world. It is vital that politicians, scientists, entrepreneurs, and others engaged in decision-making that affects nature, take into account the ways in which people value and relating to nature. This book should be extre- mely useful for achieving an understanding of the attitudes and feelings that people have. Jacques was of course entirely free to conduct and present the interviews in whatever way he thought best. To my mind he has succeeded in revealing, in an exciting and interesting manner, how ordinary people in a certain part of the world felt and thought about nature at the end of the 0th century. It remains to be asked how people will feel and think about nature at the end of the current century, if we humans are still around and if there is still be a nature to which we can relate. 6 Jacques Gandebeuf Debates in Iceland The Viking settlers who came to Iceland knew nothing about opinion pol- ls, but they were quick to devise an original way to compare points of view. Exchanging words at Þingvellir at least permitted them to defuse whatever disputes arose between them. Condemned to live together I a land that was hardly conducive to human life, they often had to return to their individual fjords after having to forfeit their illusions and doubts perhaps, but at least they returned alive. Today we might say that these peaceful debates were more imaginary than actual since, after they were over, the Vikings often set about killing each other anyway. Nevertheless, they remain quite noteworthy for that period of history and reveal that individual warriors were at least able to debate matters publicly even when they were motivated by self-interest. Thus, while I was conducting the following survey I bore in mind the whole time the Vikings ancient love of controversy. Indeed, my purpose here was to bring together a number of Icelanders to express their different and individual views. By doing that I hoped to discover what relationship the Icelan- ders have with nature. The title I have chosen might sound surprising to you. Grammatically speaking, the singular form ‘a debate’ denotes a group activity, while the following interviews were actually all carried our separately. But I 7 Jacques Gandebeuf had no choice in the matter. Since there was no possibility of actually gathe- ring together thirty people form different parts of the country for a period o three days, my solution was to arrange the differing points of view against one another in my computer. I trust the reader will forgive this fictional construct since the reason behind it was to avoid any tedious overlapping. Indeed, during this succes- sion of interviews, taken in July 996, the same subjects inevitably came up at each meeting. Thus, by collating the answers according to theme, I hoped I might be able to distil the essence of these testimonies and, in doing so, hold the reader’s attention. After all, if in 964 AD the Vikings were able to reach agreement after understanding that they did not agree at all their descendants ought to have the imagination some thousand years later to accept having spoken to people they have never actually met. So, this is not an opinion poll. All experienced journalists have learned to mistrust that tiresome phenome- non which forces the person answering the questions through all kinds of contortions, and results in both reductiveness and false representation. After all, how can one possibly categorize the complexity of human feelings by put- ting crosses in boxes? Do you feel in harmony with nature? Please put a cross in the appro- priate box: Yes... No... Don’t know... Phrased in this way, our thirty Icelanders would all have answered with a resounding “Yes.” But if one introduces some ethical notions into the debate, the answers, as we will see, soon become much more complex. Several of them even admitted to that we were making them think about things that they never thought about before. The emotion of returning home We are about to land in Iceland, and all the foreigners lean toward the window as soon as the plane descends towards Keflavík.

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