"The forest is a subject. And it speaks to you."
Memory is a sieve, and a lot of it just slips away. But there are things that don't leave. A scent, a hit or maybe a quote. These are the bright spots that we want to focus on in this series of employee portraits. Next in line is Bengt Gunnar Jonsson, Professor of Biology.
The forest is Bengt Gunnar Jonsson's, or Bege as he is called, the right element. For biologist Bege, the forest is not just a job, but a whole universe to enter, be swallowed up and fascinated by. From the largest of trees to the smallest of moss pores and insects.
" I have some kind of relationship with the forest, I think I've always had, but I realised it on a deeper level a couple of years ago when I was working with an artist. As a researcher, you see the forest as an object to be studied, but then and there I realized that the forest is also a subject. And it speaks to you. The artist's approach helped me to put my own experience into words," he says.
The forest is a safe place
Despite spending most of his childhood and adult life in the woods, Bege has never been afraid. Nor has he ever encountered a bear. On the other hand, he has been stalked by a bear once, although he did not know it at the time. But it didn't bother him. For Bege, the forest is a safe place. The safest.
" I know that some people think it can be scary, but for me, the forest is home. It smells familiar and something happens in your head when you're just there and present. We can call it recreation," he says.
Finished with uprooted trees
Bengt Gunnar Jonsson has worked at Mid Sweden University since 2002. Prior to that, he worked at Umeå University and received his PhD in 1993 with a thesis on uprooted trees. However, the uprooted trees are a thing of the past and today his focus is on how we use the forest landscape and how we can take advantage of all the values that the forest offers.
When Bege is asked to highlight five things that have been important to him, it will be a writer, a philosopher, a genre of music, a biologist and, of course, the trees and the stories they tell.