Editor's Pages

The Editor's Pages

So here we are with another volume, the 5th, of Insectifera produced. As usual, our ambition to publish the magazine by summer holidays has failed. Hopefully, however, these writings of ours can provide you readers with both knowledge and enjoyment during the late summer heat or in the autumn cool?

What has then happened on the insect front since our last issue, i.e., during 1996, and what can we expect from 1997? These questions are best answered by Clas Källander and Johan Höjer's articles on the 1996 butterfly season.

Trösken - the Railway Line

Regarding the serial on the Trösken line, the following applies:

We have received no information about the line's route. With great sorrow, however, we have witnessed that the Director of the Swedish Rail Board, Monica Andersson, has resigned. We viewed her appointment as a guarantee that irreplaceable natural values would not be lost so that some hurried business leaders could get between Sundsvall and Stockholm a few minutes faster. Hardly anyone else could afford to travel on those expensive express trains unless SJ changes its current segregating policy. Personally, I fully understand Monica's resignation after having seen only part of the impossible tasks assigned to her by the Department of Communication and its minister-led chief. It is surely not only the relatives of the Estonia victims who wonder how long this know-best policy will continue. Who pays all the costs that decisions on various matters entail, from covering the sunken ship to grand traffic routes with bridges and tunnels? In any case, I find it difficult to understand how these billion-krona investments can be paid for with railway tickets and freight transport. It is truly admirable to leave one's post as director when one cannot take responsibility for decisions made over one's head. Imagine if more directors could do so when they see that the directives are untenable. Most apparently choose instead to remain and juggle various accounts or trigger those now-famous golden parachutes.

In this perspective, it feels gratifying that we could give our environmental prize, the Golden Wing Prize, to another person who dared to stand up for an opinion and speak about what he thinks is right and wrong. Imagine if more dared to do as Monica Andersson and our Golden Wing Prize winner Hans Lundberg. Then perhaps we could see something more hopeful about the future.

Right now I think it looks dark in far too many places. It is somewhat strange that now, when the electronic communications society is completely taking over the old way of communicating by post and the very oldest way, by moving the decision-makers themselves, - just then we are expanding the railway network at fantastic costs. The most sensible thing today would surely be to make train travel truly cheap. That could give a boost to the next major industry - the experience industry, i.e., tourism. With today's train prices, unfortunately, the car will probably hold its own in the future, even though we unfortunately do not seem able to buy Swedish simple, fuel-efficient ordinary cars now that both Volvo and SAAB choose only to manufacture luxurious heavyweights.

Africa

Globally speaking, developments in the Congo Basin with Mobutu's collapsing Zaire are interesting. Perhaps the new leader Kabila can open this incredibly fascinating country to more visitors. It also sounds good that he intends to reclaim the old name Congo for this vast realm in the heart of Africa. Mobutu's name "Zaire" is a Portuguese name, while Congo is the original African name! Perhaps one of the best experts on African butterflies, the Dane Torben Larsen, will manage to produce a fauna of Congo's butterflies - "Butterflies of Congo" - now that he is soon finished with "Butterflies of West Africa". His book "Butterflies of Kenya" is one of the most delightful butterfly books ever published. Perhaps an answer to this question can be given at the currently ongoing Butterfly Symposium in Nairobi, where ABRI, i.e., the African Butterfly Research Institute, has invited the cream of the world's butterfly experts. I myself hope that my friends among the participants can give me a further addition to my own African butterfly collection. In the next Insectifera, I also hope to be able to provide a report from this meeting.

Regarding Africa, it should soon be time to break up the old colonial borders. It is truly terrible how the borders drawn by Europeans, imposed on so many different African peoples, have caused problems for our mother continent.

China

In this issue, our globetrotter Claes Eliasson has written about his trip to China in 1989. It is somewhat ironic that China's great little leader after Mao has now finally breathed his last. As responsible for an infinite number of dead Chinese and for the occupation of an entire country, it is hardly something to mourn or celebrate. The question is what comes next. I am almost a contemporary of China's invasion of Tibet under the command of the little Deng. My visits to the Tibetan refugee camps in Nepal have made me very pessimistic about these Tibetans' future.

In my eyes, it really looks dark with that billion Chinese, not only around the knot but already in its sanctuaries insofar as these exist at all anymore. The only light is surely the fantastic Dalai Lama. One cannot sufficiently marvel at this man's patience and faith in the future. We shall see how things go in Hong Kong. Regarding Hong Kong's butterfly fauna, I have a special connection to this myself. The only book on Hong Kong's butterflies was written by Major J.C.S. Marsh. Through a series of fortunate circumstances and friendly assistance from Major Marsh's widow, a large part of his butterfly collection is now included in my own world collection of butterflies.

The Testebo River

On the home front, it is now the Testebo project that is imminent. The County Administration has set aside two areas as nature reserves, partly the delta in the inner archipelago, partly the area Brännsågen - Oslättsfors. We hope to study the area's butterfly fauna during 1997 using modern technology. The Testebo River delta is already today an unpolished diamond that even extremely few Gävle residents have ever noticed. Here one can truly speak of a "nature park" in the middle of the city. In comparison with the Testebo delta, Stockholm's much-publicized national urban park appears as merely "a park," while the delta is truly a living wilderness - in the middle of the city! One can only hope that Peter Ståhl and Jonas Lundin at the Environmental Office and the County Administration can develop a management plan that can optimally benefit both animal and plant life as well as opportunities for nature studies for us Gävle residents.

What Happened to the Butterflies in 1996?

Clas Källander and Johan Höjer have, as usual, compiled the previous year's butterfly reports. Between the lines, one can discern a certain irritation with the magazine's late publication from Mr. Källander. More effort then for next year's issue! My hope for a yearbook in February is based on manuscripts by the latest in January - from everyone. You will be collecting reports to Johan about the butterflies during 1997!!!!!

50th Anniversary.

From Lars Sjölin, I have obtained a lecture on "The butterflies of the Gävle district" which our patriarch in butterfly research, Ragnar Östlund, held at the Friends of Nature association in March 1947, i.e., exactly 50 years ago. Most things remain the same from that time, even though we have now refined our investigation methods significantly with today's technology and knowledge. Today we easily find more species in Gästriklad in one season than Ragnar managed in an entire lifetime. However, the information about the butterfly fauna in the Gävle district during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s is invaluable as comparison material for our investigations today.

The Nettle Butterfly Nisse and His Friends

Lena von Strokirch is currently producing a puppet theater performance about a nettle butterfly's life from egg to adult butterfly. Read more about this later in this issue.

I am myself delighted with ambitious people who wholeheartedly engage in the work of telling and instructing our fellow citizens with knowledge about our dear insects.

Butterflies as Advertising Tools

Surely most of us have noticed that all sorts of companies and organizations in recent years have utilized our beautiful butterflies in advertising for their activities. One becomes somewhat thoughtful when one sees which companies are using these beautiful creatures for their marketing. One must ask whether, for example, ASSI Domän's major investment in butterflies is rooted in their own insight that their sale-off of previously protected Domain Reserves must be compensated for or camouflaged in some way. It feels good that Gävle's own forestry company, Korsnäs AB, has not stooped to this low level but instead can receive an award for its environmental work.

Åsa Eriksson has in this issue collected some of all the advertisements into an attractive collage. I myself wonder a bit, though, why one is not satisfied with depicting real butterflies but must "improve" them with one's own scribbling.

Does Nature Have No Copyright?

Is there no copyright protection for nature? The adjacent "logo" for the Security Foundation is hardly a masterpiece.

Göran Sjöberg