NEWS & PRESS RELEASES
Ragnar Edberg takes a pause for thought from the editorial work for IK, standing on Jesus College Green, Cambridge.
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TITLE:
Obituary Mr Ragnar Edberg - naturalist, humanist and taxidermist
DATE:
September 2008
Obituary
Ragnar Edberg
15 May 1931 - 21 July 2008
Ragnar Edberg was one of IK Foundation's oldest collaborators, having participated for almost twenty years in exhibition and publishing projects. His expertise in natural history was both unique and classic, being based on literary as well as on practical knowledge.
His literary knowledge was founded on the reading of the publications of several centuries in the field of natural history - often to be found in his personal library - and on active involvement in field studies and research.
As an ornithologist Ragnar received his training from, among others, "the father of Swedish field ornithology," Erik Rosenberg, and as a naturalist and future taxidermist from the last Swedish field taxidermist, Tore Hanson. A combination of individuals that, together with his own deep but modest curiosity, from the 1940s onward, was to inspire him throughout his life to try and understand the complexities of nature.
His understanding and knowledge of matters concerned with natural history made Ragnar into a public and educational personality through innumerable TV and radio programmes, but it was perhaps primarily through the articles and books he wrote that his sagacity has been of the utmost value to both experts and the general public - with whom he willingly shared his knowledge.
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For more than fifty years Ragnar worked and lived with an attitude of wonder towards nature, which meant that his writings on urgent issues concerning the depletion of nature by human agency were often ahead of the thinking of most other people and institutions. The Gute Sheep Society of Sweden, of which he was one of the founders, is today one of many examples of his foresight, in this case in saving an ancient breed of sheep.
A MODERN SYMBOL
Ragnar - like the philosophers Socrates and Epicurus - lived with a humanistic outlook on life that was manifested in his adopting a clear standpoint. He placed humanity and human dignity in the centre and as part of nature. It was perhaps for that reason that Ragnar had so much to bring to the editorial work as general editor and contributing subject expert within the monumental research and publishing project, The Linnaeus Apostles - Global Science & Adventure.
Like Linnaeus' apostles, he embraced both the literary and the practical world. He saw the greatness in the very small and thus understood the smallness in the great! Ragnar's knowledge lives on in his extensive achievement - he remains a modern symbol of the Enlightenment.
Lars Hansen
Executive Director |
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