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It was with great disappointment that I saw that Per Lykke was to step down as day-to-day manager of the Hardangervidda National Park Center at Skinnarbu. I have known Lykke for a long time, and have followed his work to get the national park center up and running and seen what he has achieved with the centre.
He has raised money and has also ensured that the center has a solid academic content that has an impact far beyond national borders. As far as I have registered, the center under Lykke’s management has received several international awards for its exhibitions. I don’t know many people with such commitment to nature and Hardangervidda’s fortunes and fortunes as Lykke.
The undersigned has been employed at the Faculty of Environmental Science and Nature Management at the University of Ås (NMBU), and I and others at our institution have benefited greatly from the Hardangervidda National Park Center at Skinnarbu, where Lykke and her colleagues have been very positive hosts both for us teachers and our students.
In my time, I was involved in signing an agreement of intent between the faculty (then the department of nature management) and the center at Skinnarbu with a view to using the center in teaching contexts for our students in ecology and nature management.
Over the years, around thirty of our students have had summer jobs at the centre, and several of our candidates have also been employed as natural rights leaders, thank you Lykke.
If Lykke now ends, it will not only be a loss for the national park centre, but also for all of us who in one way or another have benefited from the centre. It will hardly be easy to find a replacement with the same capacity, courage, professional efforts and contact surface as him, and we can hope that Tinn municipality manages to link Per Lykke to the center in one way or another in the future as well.
Reidar Borgstrøm
Professor Emeritus
Faculty of Environmental Science and Nature Management, NMBU, Ås