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Swedish virgin forests seen through Italian eyes

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Mount Tjeburisvárásj in Stora Sjöfallet. Photo: Andrea Barghi.

Being from a country, no matter which, there are of course a number of things you’d like to point out as special or even fantastic. But there’s always the feeling that you are biased and not really credible, a bit like when a parent points out his or her child as the most brilliant kid of all and everyone thinks “yeah, right”.
So when two Italians decide to leave Tuscany for a life in Swedish Laponia and make a beautiful book about the wild forests of Norbotten, there’s a part of me that wants to shout “Look! I was right! They say it’s a very special place!!”

Elk in Pallemsvaratj. Photo: Andrea Barghi.

To start from the beginning: The Italian photographer Andrea Barghi has visited this part of the world every year for almost 30 years, admiring the “endless expanse of a green sea” as he calls it.
Then Andrea Barghi and Veronica Bernaccioni decided to take the full step and move permanently to a small village in Norrbotten [map] .

“These places represented for us, voluntary exiles from a country where talking about nature and environment had become even inconvenient to the political party who ruled it, a horizon of hope and of great incitement to our projects”

Veronica Bernacchioni who is the editor of the book writes. In this book, The wild forests of Norbotten, photos from these forests tell the tale of an intense life, far from the “tree fields” we also have our fair share of in Sweden (which is the subject of current discussion, and that I will come back to soon on this blog). Raging rapids, majestic trees, curious elks, rosy sunsets, ancient mountains…

Iced birch at dawn. Photo: Andrea Barghi.

The book, made in honour of the International Year of Forests 2011, lets the Swedish virgin forests serve as an example of the important virgin forests of Europe, that we often take for granted, but whose biodiversity we need in million different ways in order to survive.Veronica Bernacchioni writes:

“This book has come out of our inner need to share the wonder of what we have experienced in these northern Swedish virgin forests, letting their primordial beauty be known, in order to arise a feeling of belongng and to improve their safeguarding and conservation.”

Maybe we need others to tell us what we got in order to fully appreciate it.

Below a video from the book launch, where you can see many of the photos from the book:

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

January 20, 2012

  • Monica-USA

    Lovely pictures and a very nice story.

  • Slimssmile

    Sara Jeswani !!! BEAUTIFUL NAME ,
    Offcourse nice pictures.

  • Pol – Croatia

    Do you know how far is that GMO potatoes field from this natural forest and how geologically old are that mountains and rock formations there ?

    I presume they are very old, since they seem sunken and i know Sweden is well known for its steel ore, altough obviously the ice age has made its own landmarks. From some perspectives it remainds me of some pictures from Alaska or Siberia, but on the other again somehow less “wild”, and again i sense some similarities with scenery from some places near that i live, even if the biggest mountain in my region is about 80 km north from here and can clearly be seen in distance only during nice weather.

    Having enough preserved natural forests and environment might be the only left places that we can communicate with nature. Many developed countries have spolied that, weather because of urbanisation, industry or agriculture. Good is that people and goverments are starting more to think of reforesting and diversifing landscape like it once was, coupled with suistanable agriculture and suistanable living areas. Although, who knows how long it will take before good intensions become pleasent reality, if ever.

    From experience, very often you are not cosidered as a grown up person if you do not think of land and nature as some private property for selling, building or exclusive exploiting. Unfortunately, we people have made our own laws and own reality and we stick to them even if it becomes clearly obvious they are not normal, only because that is how it is and we do not know how to change it and stay alive in the process, however in the same time not allowing even to start the discussion about it, unless someone comes with the magic stick.

  • Anonymous

    Thankyou, Monica, I love Andrea Barghi’s pictures too.

  • Anonymous

    Thankyou!

  • Sara Jeswani

    The GM trial fields are situated quite far from where these photos have been taken (at this map http://tiny.cc/0mbta you can see Vajakkala, where the fields are, marked, while for example Stora Sjöfallet at the photo above is found much to the northwest, in the large green area on the map.)

    The mountains are indeed very old, bearing traces after the movements of the great ice sheets that once covered the area.

    Well, it’s true that in some circumstances you are not considered as a grownup if you question the things we take for granted. Then it’s good to remember that many of those who have formed what we now see as normal and natural once put those very same questions, in order to create new thoughts. They were probably looked upon as slightly odd, I imagine. So keep up the questioning!

  • Pol – Croatia

    Pretty strange they put GMO field right along the Finnish border.
    Thanks a lot for encouragment, Sara.

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