To the mountain top with the worlds first Minister of the Environment

We are few people and the cities are not big in Norway, but our nature still have challenges. So much that in 1972 the Ministry of the Environment was created, as the first in the world. Since then much is achieved, among them 35 national parks, but many believe there are still a lot of challenges. Not the least because Norway is a major exporter of fossil fuels. This week the government is celebrating the first 40 years for the Ministery of Environment, and at the same time discussing what has been achieved, and not. Myself I use this opportunity to remember when I was a biology student. My teacher in botany was professor Olav Gjærevoll, who a decade earlier had been had been the world’s first Minister of the Environment. The picture below is from an excursion to a mountaintop to find rare flowers with Gjærevold as the guide. This was in the beginning of the 1980s and one of mye best times as a student. We learned a lot. And we lived at Kongsvold, the picture at the top. It is also a small botanical garden for wild mountain plants in this place.

Edvard Grieg, the norwegian composer, once wrote In the Hall of the Mountain King (Dovregubbens hall) inspired by these mountains. That is something else, no flowers there, but here it is: