Report from Mr. Thore Vestby, Honorary Mayor of Frogn, Norway
August and September 2017
In August and September this year, four member cities in Norway plant ginkgo tree seedlings whose mother tree was exposed to the atomic bombing in Hiroshima in August 1945.
In 2014, the City of Frogn, Vice President City of Mayors for Peace, received seeds of an A-bombed ginkgo tree from Mayors for Peace Secretariat in Hiroshima and handed them over to the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. It was feared that ginkgo biloba might not grow well in the cold Norwegian climate, but a number of seeds sprouted, and after three years of good care, four of the seedlings had grown big enough to be planted in four coastal cities in Norway: Halden, Kvinesdal, Larvik and Frogn.
On August 26, the City of Halden held a planting ceremony of a seedling, which was attended by the Mayor of Halden. Then on August 29, to coincide with the UN’s International Day Against Nuclear Tests, the City of Kvinesdal held a planting ceremony, attended by the Mayor of Kvinesdal as well as a large number of citizens including many young students. The event included speeches and musical performances.
The plantings of seedlings in Larvik and Frogn are scheduled in September.
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| Mayor of Halden (right) planting the ginkgo seedling on August 26 (Courtesy of Hanne Eriksen) | |
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| Planting ceremony in Kvinesdal on August 29 | Mayor of Kvinesdal in front of the ginkgo seedling |
| (Courtesy of Thore Vestby) | |