Norway's ambivalent relationship to environment and sustainability

In my opinion, Norway has an ambivalent relationship towards environment and sustainability.

On one hand, we have a history of engagement: Our former Prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland chaired the report “Our Common Future”, back in the 1970s – the source of ‘sustainable use’ concept. And Norway still gives high priority to international environmental co-operation. Our Minister of climate and environment Ola Elvestuen was recently appointed a president of UN’s Environment Assembly, and Oslo was selected as the European Green Capital of 2019.

On the other hand, Norway struggles to maximize the economic benefits of our rich natural resource base while also protecting our environmental values. Fish farming and forest clearcutting are much debated, as well as our offshore activity and its contribution to climate change. Recently, there has been a hot debate on whether Norway should allow (mostly foreign, including German) companies to construct wind energy plants in wilderness areas. Which is most important, to protect the remaining natural areas and its species, or to serve as Europe’s ‘green battery’?

If we look at the 2355 species listed on the Norwegian Red list of threatened species, there is no doubt that habitat destruction, through intensive land use, is the main challenge for Norwegian biodiversity. For 90 percent of the threatened species, land use is the main threat.

And when it comes to species, it’s really insects you’re talking about. As in Germany and the rest of the world, roughly every other known species in Norway is an insect. And they are having a hard time in our modern agricultural or forested landscapes. The proportion of threatened species among the pollinating insects and those living in dead trees is especially high.

So why should we care about the insects decline? Most people see insects as a nuisance and a dispensable annoyance. But if you value life as we know it, you should rejoice in the presence of our six-legged companions. Because we humans rely on insects. We need them for pollination, for decomposition and soil formation; to serve as food for other animals and inspire us with their smart solutions. Insects are nature’s little cogs that make the world go ‘round.

That’s why I wanted to write a book about them, a narrative non-fiction book. I wanted to show that insects are indispensable, but I wanted to do it by telling entertaining stories about all the fun and fascinating insects out there. My secret mission is to make people love insects in all their strangeness and beauty: Grasshoppers with ears on their knees, flies that taste with their feet, and honey bees that can count to four and recognize human faces!

These amazing creatures have helped us in so many ways. Beethoven’s music sheets and Goethe’s writings were written with iron gall ink made from small structures on oak trees, induced by a tiny wasp. The flitting fruit fly in your kitchen has been essential in no less than six Nobel prizes in medicine, and research has showed that mealworms can digest plastic.

I like to think of the world as a hammock made of woven fabric: all the species on the planet and their lives form part of the weaving, and all of them combined create the hammock we humans are resting in. Insects are so numerous that they account for a large share of the hammock’s fabric. If we reduce insect populations and wipe out insect species, it’s as if we are pulling threads out of the weave. That might be fine as long as there are only a few small holes and loose threads here and there. But if we pull out too many, the whole hammock will eventually unravel—and our welfare and well-being along with it.

That’s why I’m hoping that my book Extraordinary Insects: Weird. Wonderful. Indispensable. The ones who run our world (Harper Collins) can open people’s eyes to the weird and wonderful world of insects - and show why we cannot live without these tiny creatures.