Yes, Holth. There is a natural crisis in Norway as well
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Glommen Mjøsen Skog’s head of business policy, Yngve Holth, writes in a post on 5 July that it has not been documented that Norway is in a radical natural crisis, and that he does not see any urgency for measures. This is a claim that at best testifies to ignorance.
Because if Holth had followed in recent years, he would have received the solid documentation he is now calling for. Take, for example, the Species Data Bank’s latest evaluation of Norwegian nature. Here, professionals find that whole 21 percent of assessed species and 44 per cent of habitat types are in such poor condition that they end up on the red list.
This also applies to “common” species such as wild salmon, porcupines, ramsons, gray gulls and wild reindeer. WWF’s Living Planet Report from 2020, which also includes a species in Norwegian nature, states that the decline in animal populations globally has been 68 percent since 1970, and that such mass death has not occurred since the dinosaurs became extinct 66 million years ago. According to the UN nature panel is about one million species threatened with extinction.
Both the Species Data Bank and the Living Planet Report conclude that the biggest threat to nature is land changes. More and more nature must give way to new motorways and larger cabin fields.
Intensive agriculture and forestry make the cultural landscape and forest poorer, and overfishing and bycatch pose an increasing threat to vulnerable fish species. It is a clear sign that we are in the middle of an acute natural crisis, and that we need immediate measures, also in Norway.
Fortunately, Holth acknowledges that we have a climate crisis and points to climate change that will greatly affect Norwegian forests in the time ahead. Recently, the Scientific Committee on Food and the Environment a comprehensive assessment of thisand stated that the best measure to meet the climate challenges is to make the forests more robust through increased variation in tree species, plant and animal life and age composition.
We simply have to get back more of the biodiversity we had in the forest before we started with today’s intensive forestry.
But the natural crisis does not only affect the forest. Nature with its resources is the basis of both the global, national and local economy, and when we build it down a little too little, we put ourselves at an ever-increasing risk of losing these resources.
The World Economic Forum has estimated that nature provides services, such as pollination and flood defenses, for a staggering $ 120-145 trillion annually. A ruined nature will, in the worst case, result in a ruined economy and great uncertainty for society. This is something that both the business community and most people have to take in to an increasing degree.
The fact that the government has now appointed a separate committee to look more closely at natural risks shows that the natural crisis is not just something the environmental movement is talking about. It is also something our decision makers take seriously. I, unlike Holth, welcome this committee, and look forward to hearing their recommendations so that we can be better in nature and our common resource base, to the delight of us all.