S:t Olofsgatan 33 A, S-753 30 Uppsala, Sweden
Föreningen Uppsala Natur - FÖRNA (Uppsala Nature Society) is located in Uppsala and affiliated to Svenska Naturskyddsföreningen (Swedish Society for Nature Conservation). FÖRNA was founded back in 1969 as a society run by and for students. Today the 250-person strong member body consists of undergraduate students, Ph.D. students as well as unemployed and employed persons. FÖRNA is multinational and multicultural in the sense that many of our members were born and raised abroad in countries like Germany, Poland, Eritrea, Finland, Norway etc.
We have working groups in the areas of transport & city planning, environmental friendly shopping as well as forest issues. Annually, we arrange our grey sea eagle (Haliaetus Albicilla) excursion, cf. our logo, our reaping of the meadow Lunsenängen as well as our (pre)Christmas party. We also arrange many kinds of excursions in order to study plants, birds, bats, adders (Vipera Berus) etc. as well as indoor meetings. Our greatest success so far in this year is the multimedia show on the killer whale (Orcinus Orca) which some 75 persons attended in a single night. During the summer we arrange member trips both within Sweden and abroad. Previously, we have visited places like Abisko National Park far north in Sweden, Torun and Minsk. FÖRNA has also been the host to environmental groups from Torun and Minsk have which have enjoyed our program which included visits to nature reserves, nuclear power plants, steel and paper mills etc.
Uppsala (some 100,000 inhabitants in the built up area) is an intellectual centre in Sweden with 2 research universities: Uppsala University (28,000 undergraduate and 2,700 Ph.D. students) and the smaller Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences which has its main campus at Ultuna, just outside Uppsala
The communications in the Uppsala area are good, in fact too good.
Uppsala is located along the E4 highway some 30 minutes north
of the Stockholm-Arlanda International Airport which is the 5th
largest in Europe. The plans for a new highway north of Uppsala
is strongly opposed by FÖRNA. Uppsala Central Railway Station
is located 66 km north of Stockholm and served by the X2000 high-speed
train which cruising speed is 200 km per hour.
(written by Kim Aastangen)