The case in summary: The sound of nature has changed significantly over the past decades, but many people are not aware of it. Change blindness and change deafness are phenomena where people do not notice changes that occur over time. The sound of the forest has also changed, with primeval forests giving a different soundscape to plantation-style production forests. Less than 2 percent of the forest area in Norway is close to primeval forest, with many dead trees and no visible traces of humans. Although few species in Norway have completely disappeared, the number of individuals for each species has plummeted, says Ole Mathismoen. The summary is made by an AI service from OpenAi. The content is quality assured by news’s journalists before publication Below you will hear the sound of a Kauai honeyeater, a bird that used to be common on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. Click on the video below to listen while you read. This is one of the last recordings of Kauai honeybees. The recording was made by Jim Jacobi in 1986. He sits and sings, hoping to attract a girlfriend. Audio: Jim Jacobi – Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library But he never gets an answer. We will never hear this sound in nature again. Both the sound of living things and nature itself have changed a lot in just a few decades. The sound is changing – The sound of nature has changed, but very few people realize it, says Ole Mathismoen. He is a writer and former journalist in Aftenposten. For over 40 years, he has written about changes in nature in newspapers. Ole Mathismoen is concerned with changes in nature. Photo: Cappelen Damm – If you lie outside in the forest now, you still wake up because of all the birdsong, but it’s nothing compared to what it was 20-30 years ago. – But we don’t remember that. Just as we are change-blind to physical changes, we are change-deaf to how the sounds become fewer. For example, listen to this sound clip from the Runde bird mountain in 1968 and in 2023: 8 out of 10 birds have disappeared from the Norwegian bird mountains in the last 50 years. Photo: Trond Berg / news Change-blindness and deafness – This is not a special interest, this is not a dill valley only for those from Nedre Blindern who run around with binoculars around their necks, says Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson. – This is about the basis of our life. Sverdrup-Thygeson is an author and professor at NMBU. She talks about how we are precisely blind to change, or in this case deaf to change. Professor Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson is clear in her speech. This is about the basis of our life. Photo: Celina Øier – We don’t notice changes that happen, because they happen over time. She reminisces back to her childhood. After a drive, the family had to wash insects off the car, but now there are almost none. Her children in their 20s do not have this same relationship with the insects. – What you have never experienced, you don’t miss either. The sound of the skauen It’s one thing the birdsong and Kaua’i honeybees, but there’s actually a difference in how nature itself sounds. Imagine that you are in a primeval forest. Some trees have fallen and are leaning against each other. – When the wind blows through the tree crowns you hear creaking and cracking, says Sverdrup-Thygeson. Less than 2 percent of the forest area in Norway is like this forest in Øvre Pasvik; primeval forest. Photo: Ksenia Novikova – It will give a different sound to a plantation-style production forest where the spruce trees stand on joints and are exactly the same age and exactly the same size, and no trees are allowed to grow old. Because almost all Norwegian forests have been affected by logging, and large areas have been cleared and planted after the war. Less than 2 percent of the forest area in Norway is primeval forest. It is therefore old, with many dead trees, and no visible traces of people. Sverdrup-Thygeson says that a living forest has many dead trees. Photo: Mikkel Soya Bølstad Is this a problem in Norway? – In Norway, unlike many other countries, it is not too late, says Ole Mathismoen. He says that very few of the species in Norway are completely gone forever, but that the number of individuals for each species has plummeted. But, perhaps we don’t notice the low number? – If you take the plane from Oslo to Trondheim, Norway looks completely green. It is terribly difficult to get people to understand what is going on. The mathismo says that the change in sound is something that really worries him. – We don’t even remember what we heard a few weeks ago. He believes that Norwegians are good at appreciating nature, but not enough to put a stop to large destructive developments. We don’t know where the tolerance limit is, according to him. – We don’t really appreciate what we have around us until it’s gone. Right now we are losing a lot of wild Norway. Published 30.06.2024, at 18.45
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How the sound of nature has changed – news Trøndelag – Local news, TV and radio
