Wednesday, October 8, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Discover autumn’s edible plants

Published 31 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Even in autumn there are plenty of edible plants to pick.
5 minute read

Despite the end of summer, there is still plenty to pick when it comes to edible plants. Heather grows in the forest, which according to Swedish folklore should not be brought into the home, but which can be effective against gastritis. A common lawn weed that grows in the autumn also contains a lot of nutrients.

As summer turns to autumn, much of the Swedish vegetation begins to wither as the heat fades. However, there are a lot of herbs and other plants that grow into autumn, and also a lot to pick all year round in both forests and fields.


The article was originally published in The Nordic Times on September 14, 2024.


Sweden’s “right of public access” (allemansrätten) allows people to pick many plants, mushrooms and berries in the country’s forests and fields. Remember, however, that one needs the landowner’s permission to pick the fruits of trees and certain other plants. Also, never pick more than you need, and remember that many plants are food for other animals.

One thing that is always important is to never eat anything you are unsure about, as many of the country’s plants can actually be very poisonous.

Chickweed (Stellaria media)

Harvested: All year round

This herb is a very common weed and grows mainly in gardens throughout the country. It grows in large stands and has egg-shaped leaves with small white flowers. It can also be recognized by the hairs on one side of the stem. In Sweden, it is the most common herbaceous weed.

It has many different names, but is most commonly called chickweed because it is often eaten by birds. It is also called fat grass and reed grass.

You can eat its leaves, flowers, shoots and stems. It is rich in carbohydrates and protein with a good amino acid composition. The herb also has a high content of ascorbic acid, i.e. vitamin C. The leaves also contain minerals and trace elements such as calcium, potassium, phosphorus, copper, magnesium, iron and zinc. It is also said to be rich in antioxidants. In short, it has a high nutritional content compared to other green plants.

The plant is often used raw in salads where you can mix in the whole plant, flowers and all. It is also said to be great for making pesto. The flavor is described as mild, grassy and spinachy. It is best to cut the tops and avoid getting the slightly coarser parts of the stalk further down. It should also be good to fry in butter and then flavor with salt, lemon and nutmeg.

The chickweed is said to be expectorant and therefore good for coughs. It has also been used to treat rheumatic pain, kidney problems, hemorrhoids and asthma. It is also said to have been used in folk medicine to bandage wounds. The leaves also have a moisturizing mucilage that makes it effective against sunburn or eczema, for example.

Chickweed. Photo: Harry Rose/CC BY 2.0

Hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta)

Harvested: March to November

This herb, often considered a weed, grows along the coastal strip up to the central parts of Sweden. It grows in various places such as forest edges, rock outcrops and gravel fields. It flowers in spring, but continues to grow until November. It is paired at the base and then has up to seven pairs of small leaves, as well as some hairy stem leaves and white flowers. It can be easily confused with other brambles, but all in the genus are edible.

The flavor is mildly peppery and you can eat the leaves, flowers, seeds and shoots. It can be used raw in salads, but also in soups or stews. However, it can lose some of its flavor if cooked, so it’s best to add it towards the end. The seeds can be used as a spice.

It contains some carbohydrates and proteins, but also potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc. It is also said to have antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral and antioxidant properties.

Traditionally, it has been used for inflamed hemorrhoids, coughs, whooping cough and indigestion. It is also used to make a paste that can be applied to wounds.

Hairy bittercress. Photo: Andreas Rockstein/CC BY-SA 2.0

Heather (Calluna vulgaris)

Harvested: July to October

Autumn heather, as it can also be called, is a dwarf shrub found throughout the country. It often grows in poor soil on moors, in sparse forests, pine bogs and rocky ground. Heather grows to a height of between 20 and 80 centimeters, has coniferous leaves and light purple flowers. It can be confused with the bell heather, but it has urn-shaped flowers instead.

Heather is a common decorative plant, especially in autumn and winter. It is also the landscape flower of Västergötland.

According to Skogsskafferiet, you can eat the stem, flower and leaves of heather. The plant is mainly used as a herbal tea, which is said to have a calming and anaesthetic effect. It is also said to be effective against gastritis, in which case the tea should be taken 30 minutes before meals. Traditionally, heather has also been used for its anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. It is also said to be used to make an infusion of heather and to bathe wounds. Drinking heather tea can also provide relief from urinary tract infections.

The name “Calluna” comes from the Greek kallyno, meaning “to beautify”. According to Swedish folklore, however, it was not a good idea to bring heather into the home as an ornament, writes Sydved. It could lead to both poverty and death, according to the saying: “Pick heather – die young”. On the other hand, the seeds could be used to enrich flour and the roots were used to make baskets. The plant is also said to have been used for coloring yellow and brown.

Heather. Photo: Tero Karppinen/CC BY 2.0

 

Daisy (Bellis perennis)

Harvested: March to November

It grows on many lawns and pastures, but mainly in southern and central Sweden. They flower almost all year round. The flowers are usually white, but sometimes with pink radius and yellow disk floret.There are also several cultivated varieties in different colors, but the most common is red.

They resemble ox-eye daisies (leucanthemum vulgaris) commonly known as prästkrage in Sweden, but are smaller in size. Daisies also grow closer to the ground and often form “carpets” of flowers, while ox-eye daisies often grow higher up with one flower per stem.

Both flowers and leaves are edible. They can be used in salads and the flowers can be sprinkled on any dish. The flower petals can also be used as sprinkles or instead of coconut on chocolate balls.

In folk medicine, it has been used to treat fever and as an expectorant for coughs. It has also been used to treat eczema and fungus. The stems contain a sap that is said to have been effective against pimples.

The daisy. Montage. Foto: New York State IPM Program at Cornell University, Conall/CC BY 2.0

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Conservation or animal cruelty? Denmark’s rewilding projects under fire

Biodiversity

Published 5 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
At the rewilding project Saksfjed Wilderness in Denmark, Galloway cattle, Exmoor horses and Tauros cattle graze freely year-round.
6 minute read

Restoring nature means letting it return to the wild – releasing control and allowing natural processes to develop. In Denmark, cattle and horses graze freely year-round as part of ambitious rewilding projects to recreate original ecosystems.

However, the method has created a difficult balancing act: while the projects demonstrably benefit biodiversity, they draw strong criticism from animal welfare organizations who argue that the animals are subjected to unnecessary suffering.

Knutshoved Odde is a 30-kilometer-long peninsula located near Vordingborg, about 90 kilometers southwest of Copenhagen, Denmark. The area was formed during the Ice Age and consisted until the 1800s of natural pastures, water holes, and wetlands – as evidenced by historical maps. Since then, large parts have been converted to agricultural land through drainage, stone removal, and filling of natural depressions in the landscape.

The rewilding project LIFE Clima-Bombin, which started in 2019, primarily aimed to restore the natural environment that previously existed, and then preserve it – something they have now succeeded in doing. This was made possible with funding from the EU’s LIFE fund and the Danish Environmental Protection Agency. To restore the natural lands, they began by recreating the landscape from the ground up. Agricultural land has been transformed by replacing large quantities of stones and sowing seeds with wild grassland species.

We want to recreate what we call ‘The Old Country’. That is, the landscape as it looked before 1800, when the medieval landscape contained water holes, pastures, and large, scattered oaks. Denmark was intensively grazed for 6,000 years until the king sold his land. At the beginning of the 19th century, everything changed to agriculture and dark forests. And then almost all our biodiversity disappeared, said Peer Ravn, who is a partner in the project, to the Danish Society for Nature Conservation in 2023.

The biggest change occurred when they removed the pumps that had drained the land, and now six islands have emerged after restoring the water areas. To create more biodiversity, they also have cattle and horses grazing in the areas year-round.

Now nature has returned to Knutshoved Odde. The area, which was previously poor in plants, now blooms colorfully in summer. Since the wetlands were restored, more and more breeding birds have arrived each year. The area is also an important habitat for all species of Denmark’s endangered amphibians, whose habitats were previously threatened by flooding. Now the frogs have better conditions with the restored water holes.

The agricultural land has now returned to its former state – by recreating the land and letting nature have free rein, it has relatively quickly taken hold again, where biodiversity now flourishes.

At Saksfjed Vildmark, cattle graze freely. Photo: Saksfjed Vildmark/FB

Domesticated grazing animals

The grazing animals are a central part of nature restoration as they perform so-called “natural disturbances” similar to those that existed when more large grazing animals lived freely in Europe. The Knutshoved Odde area is a completed and successful project where grazing animals were used, but far from the only rewilding project in Denmark.

The Saksfjed Vildmark project is an ongoing and relatively new project – started in 2023. It is an 800-hectare area in southern Lolland, which here too was previously agricultural land. There they have restored wetlands, sown wild species, and also introduced grazing livestock and horses.

The area is a Natura 2000 area and is described as one of the largest rewilding projects underway in Denmark. The agricultural land is gone and now the site is rich in species and biodiversity, something they claim has been made possible largely by the grazing animals.

At Saksfjed Vildmark today there are Galloway cattle, Exmoor horses, and Tauros cattle. They graze down the vegetation and thereby prevent overgrowth, trample up soil, and promote biodiversity.

Even if we don’t see the animals, we can see that they have been here. They have made a path through this former reed sea. The horses have scratched themselves on this birch, they have scraped with their hooves on the ground so that sandy patches have formed, and they have grazed off the green leaves up to over a meter’s height, which creates a semi-open landscape, explains Jens Thorvig Andersen, who is a nature interpreter at the area, for Naturpodden.

Since ecological conditions have changed over the past hundred years, carbon dioxide and nitrogen emissions have also increased dramatically. This means that larger and faster-growing plants take over the landscape, such as grass, thistles, and nettles. But when large animals graze, it affects the landscape and gives small plants greater advantages to flourish.

Starving animals are shot

There are more ongoing rewilding projects in Denmark where grazing animals are used to promote biodiversity. The animals are allowed to live completely freely within fenced areas and often receive no supplementary feed, which in practice means they must fend for themselves. The animals also don’t have the same supervision requirements normally required and live essentially their lives outside human hands – who only check on them from a distance.

This has sparked strong criticism, particularly against the Mols Laboratory, which is a kind of field laboratory in Mols Bjerge National Park in southeastern Jutland, Denmark. There, since 2016, they have let livestock and horses roam freely year-round in a rewilding project, but it hasn’t gone entirely smoothly.

During 2023, starvation among the animals was reported and that the food available in nature simply wasn’t sufficient. A large part of the vegetation is also toxic to horses and cattle, such as ragwort.

All animals at risk of starving to death were shot instead – a total of 67 percent of the animals between 2019-2020.

At the Mols Laboratory, the animals never get older than six years, said equine veterinarian Lotte Bøgedal to Djurskyddet (Swedish animal welfare magazine) in 2023.

It is primarily the Mols Laboratory that has received strong criticism regarding its grazing wild-living animals, and it’s unclear whether all rewilding projects have exactly the same conditions for the animals. However, a common component seems to be that the animals take care of themselves, without supplementary feeding, year-round.

Horses grazing freely in August this year at the Mols Laboratory. Photo: Molslaboratoriet/FB

Animal welfare or nature conservation

All these nature restoration projects in Denmark can see clear benefits from the year-round grazing animals in the form of rich and varied nature that has re-emerged – but the animal welfare issue becomes complex and challenging, especially in a society where animal rights carry increasing weight. Risk of starvation and suffering cannot be ruled out when animals live essentially as wild animals, but at the same time they cannot be classified as wild since they are both fenced and domesticated.

It simply becomes an animal welfare law issue, since in practice it would be illegal for, for example, a private person to keep animals in a similar way. Denmark has animal welfare laws, including that animals’ needs must always be met, which includes access to food. However, they passed a new law in 2021 that can allow animals living fenced in national parks to “regulate their population naturally according to food availability.” To implement the law, however, one must apply for an exemption from the animal welfare law. According to Bøgedal, the field laboratory had at least not received such an exemption in 2023.

Morten DD Hansen, who works at the Mols Laboratory, believes the criticism is not “unexpected” but nevertheless points out that it is not illegal to keep animals as they do at the field laboratory.

Many people feel sorry for the animals, but we prioritize letting the animals live as wildly as possible and interact with the varied nature as unregulated as possible. Research is conducted on the animals’ behavior and when this work is finished it will naturally be published”, he writes to Djurskyddet.

Reintroduction of wild animals

In Sweden and other parts of Europe, work has been done to reintroduce European bison in forests for nature conservation purposes. The idea is that it should benefit biodiversity by, among other things, counteracting overgrowth and creating habitats for many endangered species. In Sweden, the reintroduction is still in a preliminary study phase.

The difference there, however, is that European bison are a wild species that previously existed in Swedish forests, while the animals kept free in Denmark are domesticated animals. Arguments from an animal welfare perspective can therefore be that bison are created for the wild, while the other animals are too domesticated to fend for themselves. Additionally, Sweden is considering supplementary feeding of the bison initially to reduce the risk of starvation.

Despite the criticism, Danish rewilding projects continue to develop successfully. While the results for biodiversity are clearly positive, the challenge remains of how animal welfare should be guaranteed in these semi-wild environments. The debate reflects a larger discussion about where the line is drawn between nature’s own processes and human responsibility for the animals that humans once domesticated.

Finland’s wolf population grows dramatically

Biodiversity

Published 1 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Wolves have been observed in new locations, primarily in southwestern Finland.
1 minute read

Finland’s wolf population increased markedly last year – significantly more than in previous years. The largest growth occurred in the western parts of the country.

In March last year, the number of wolves in Finland was estimated at 295 individuals. By March this year, the figure had grown to 430. The numbers are estimates based on recorded observations, DNA monitoring, and data on wolf mortality. The number of wolves could therefore be between 413 and 465 individuals.

The number of individuals has grown by a full 46 percent compared to last year, so it’s a really dramatic increase, says researcher Mia Valtonen at the Finnish Natural Resources Institute to Yle.

The wolf population has increased mainly in western Finland, particularly in the southwestern parts. However, wolves have been observed in significantly larger areas than before, even in places where they have never been seen previously.

In Scandinavia, the wolf has long been considered threatened and has had strong protection, but in May the EU Parliament approved a downgrading of the wolf’s protection status. This means that population management hunting could now be permitted in Finland, something that Finnish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Sari Essayah has strongly advocated for.

Without population management hunting, the number of wolves is calculated to increase to 557 individuals in November and 436 in March next year. With population management hunting, there would of course be fewer, says Samu Mäntyniemi, leading researcher at the Natural Resources Institute.

Baltic Sea in critical condition – fishing bans no longer sufficient

Published 30 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
The EU's fishing plan for the Baltic Sea has failed and fish stocks cannot be saved even with a fishing ban, a new report shows.
1 minute read

The Baltic Sea is in such poor condition that even fishing bans are insufficient to save fish stocks, according to a new EU report. Today, EU ministers will hold a crisis meeting in Stockholm, Sweden to discuss the situation.

In about a month, EU countries must decide on fishing quotas for the Baltic Sea for next year. However, a new report commissioned by the EU ahead of this decision-making process, written by fisheries expert Christian Möllmann from the University of Hamburg, Germany, concludes that the current system implemented in the Baltic Sea is not working as intended.

“The MAP has largely failed to achieve its objective of restoring and maintaining harvested species populations above MSY levels”, the report states.

Furthermore, Möllmann warns that even a complete fishing ban in the Baltic Sea would not be sufficient for fish stocks to recover.

“A fast recovery of cod and open sea herring stocks is unlikely even under a fishing ban”.

On Tuesday, a meeting will be held in Stockholm where fisheries and climate ministers, commissioners, and various EU parliamentarians from Baltic Sea countries will gather to discuss the situation. Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall will lead the meeting together with her fisheries counterpart Costas Kadis.

We all know that the Baltic Sea is in very poor condition and has been for a long time. But I think there is much greater cooperation between countries today, Roswall told Swedish news agency TT.

“Climate catastrophe in computer models”

The exaggerated climate crisis

Computer models warning of Gulf Stream collapse are based on incorrect assumptions about Greenland ice sheet melting. Media worsens the situation by incorrectly calling computer simulations "studies", writes Tege Tornvall.

Published 17 September 2025
– By Tege Tornvall
Photo: iStock/gorodenkoff
2 minute read

Much of the world’s climate research is conducted using computers. Various hypothetical scenarios (sequences of events) are run with different assumptions about influencing factors. Depending on the chosen assumptions, they naturally produce different results.

Media incorrectly calls such computer runs “studies”. This gives the impression that they would actually happen in reality. But they don’t. They are simply assumptions. Computers calculate based on what they are fed.

A current example concerns the Atlantic’s major ocean current AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation). This includes the Gulf Stream, which gives western Europe a milder climate than we would otherwise have. German professor Stefan Rahmstorf and others have calculated its possible development.

The assumption is that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would cause Greenland’s large ice sheet to melt. Based on this, computer models calculate the possible risk that the Gulf Stream would weaken or even collapse. This would likely give us a colder climate.

The computers seem to have run hot. With continued increasing CO2 levels, 70 percent of model runs show that the Gulf Stream would collapse before 2100. Even with less CO2 input, they calculate a 25 percent risk of collapse.

But the assumption itself is flawed. Partly because higher CO2 levels have marginal and logarithmically decreasing warming effects in the atmosphere. Partly because Greenland’s large ice expanses have annual average temperatures of minus 20-30 degrees Celsius.

Returning researchers find their camps covered with snow and ice. The old US military base Camp Century in northwestern Greenland has been covered with 30 meters of ice since it was closed over 50 years ago.

That surrounding sea ice decreases in summer and grows in winter does not affect sea level and hardly affects currents either.

Even though some researchers warn of a weaker Gulf Stream, others do not. According to ocean researcher Léon Chafik at Stockholm University, Sweden, we should not let ourselves be frightened by speculation that the Gulf Stream will soon collapse. His colleague Frederik Schenk urges us to stop alarming about the Gulf Stream.

 

Tege Tornvall

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