This post was written by Leslie Fox, an educator, mother, and eco-philosopher who lives in the Pacific Northwest, with deep familial ties to Norway. She is a co-founder of A Hundred Years of Listening project along with her colleagues Martin Lee Mueller, Wenche Arff Gulseth, Siw Laurent and Austra Apsite.

It was one of those days when everything seemed to burst with life. Early May in Norway. Life is when the world finally wakes up, shaking off the long, dark winter. Everything was vibrantly green; each breath felt like inhaling pure chlorophyll. My steps were light that Sunday morning as I made my way down to the Oslofjord.

I sat on a wooden pier. The water’s surface lay still—like a black mirror. Everything was quiet. Too quiet. Too lifeless. The vitality I had felt in my body was met with an unsettling stillness. And the grief that had lingered in my heart for years rose up and filled me. In that moment, it was as if my body caught up with what my heart and mind already knew: I was sitting beside a dying fjord. There, I let the grief spread from my body like waves into the day. Just moments before, I had been staring into a black mirror—still, silent, empty. The fjord had felt lifeless.

And then, something changed. A school of fish appeared beneath my feet. The surface, so still just seconds earlier, broke into rings. Six eiders crossed in front of me, paddling steadily through the water. Overhead, a lone seagull circled again and again, crying out into the sky. In this moment, I heard within my heart: It’s not too late. It’s not too late.

Later, as I reflected on what had happened, I began to understand it more clearly. It was my heart that had called out—and the fjord had responded. That moment changed something in me. This encounter turned my grief into a vow to act and support Oslofjord in any way I could. 

-Wenche Arff Gulseth, Retired Lawyer, environmentalist and Grandmother of six, based in Oslo, Norway

A Vow to the Fjord

Wenche’s story expresses the spirit of how our small group of friends came together. Each of us carries a version of this same vow—born not in abstract concern, rather in a moment of deep listening, when the fjord spoke to us in its own way and asked for our response. Together, we have dedicated ourselves to supporting Oslofjord, the vital waterway that connects Norway’s capital city, Oslo, with the North Sea, as it moves through ongoing ecological collapse.
We are a group of people with backgrounds in academia, eco-philosophy, education, environmental law, somatic coaching, music, and community organizing. Each of us carries a personal story of belonging to this place— through our ancestors and through our dedication. Our paths and lineages are diverse, yet we each carry a thread of care for future generations as mothers, fathers, and grandparents.

A Hundred Years of Listening

A Hundred Years of Listening is our shared response and offering: a long-range, place-based cultural practice rooted in attention, ceremony, and the reweaving of relationship with the fjord. Rooted in collaboration with the Arne Næss Foundation, this project carries forward the Nordic tradition of ecophilosophy as a living practice in response to ecological crisis. Each year, we will enter into a cycle of listening centered around one species, element, or feature of the Oslofjord ecosystem–the ancient greenland shark, the Akerselva river, the eelgrass, the fossil beach on Malmøya. Through seasonal observation, music, storytelling, art, ritual, and community engagement, we will come to know the fjord more intimately, and respond in ways that emerge from what we hear.

These offerings will take the form of public events, concerts, ceremonies, ecological restoration projects, school partnerships, and quiet acts of care. Over time, this practice will grow into a living archive—an intergenerational record of attention, shaped by the rhythms of the watershed itself with the goal of engaging the wider community to become stakeholders of care, from children to elders, from those with deep roots within the fjord to those just beginning to plant them. To truly listen, we must start with where we are: the place we call home. 

Nearly 40% of Norway’s population lives within the Oslofjord catchment area—a region where rain and snowmelt gather in forested hills, meander through farmland and villages, pass under highways and the dense apartment blocks of the urban centers, and eventually reach the saltwater edge: once a brackish estuary, now lined with concrete bulkheads and riverbanks. Inner Oslofjord runs nearly 200 kilometers and meets the liminal threshold into the Skagerrak—a maritime gateway connecting the North Sea to the Baltic. It is a living relational field, connecting land, species, and people through the movement of water.

A Fjord in Crisis

Oslofjord’s delicate ecosystem is unraveling. Eelgrass meadows and kelp forests are smothered by algae mats, called “lurv” locally, fueled by nutrient pollution from farming, sewage, and urban runoff. These blooms block sunlight and deplete oxygen, threatening marine life in the fjord’s depths.

Overfishing has devastated key species such as herring and cod. The loss of older herring has disrupted their traditional migration patterns, and cod stocks have declined steeply after decades of extraction. Seabirds that once followed these fish are vanishing too—evidence of a food web in collapse.

These shifts are not random. They’re the result of human activity: intensive farming, polluted runoff, aging sewage infrastructure, sustained overfishing, and the cumulative pressure of shipping and port operations. Norway has launched a national plan and established an Oslofjord Council, but fragmented governance and delayed implementation mean the crisis continues to deepen.

What is happening here is not unique. Watersheds around the world are experiencing shared patterns of collapse—driven by a similar cultural disconnection from the more-than-human world.

Yet what’s largely missing are cultural responses that invite everyday people to become active participants in the care of their watershed. Beyond policies and plans, we see the need for practices that restore relationship—ways of engagement that awaken both belonging and commitment to the life of this place.

Restoring Relationship

Our intention is to offer ourselves back to the animate web of beings—beginning with those in our own bioregion, and more specifically, to the dance of collapse unfolding here on the shores of Oslofjord. Rather than rushing to fix things with mind-led strategies—implementing the latest evidence-based solutions or imposing new frameworks of rights and management—we orient ourselves toward listening. Listening for what the fjord is asking of us: through silence, through presence, through offering, and through the life that still moves within her.

This may seem like a radical act. But we recognize we are not alone. The seeds of this project appear timely—part of a larger remembering that is emerging around the world.

As part of this movement, we are committed to partnering with Pachamama Alliance’s Earth Listening Circles and have pledged to participate in the Global Day of Listening on September 21st. On that day, we will begin the first ceremonial cycle of A Hundred Years of Listening, supported by our special guest Arkan Lushwala—a Quechua ceremonial leader, wisdom keeper, and author. His presence comes through a private thread of relationship and synchronistic invitation—one that cannot be fully explained here, but is deeply felt, trusted and respectfully held. It belongs to something we hold quietly—anchored in relationship and guidance, not rationale.

Together, we will mark this first turning with prayer, presence, and a vow to return again and again—to listen, and to respond from that place. We are excited to join people around the world—wherever you are—on this potent day of listening. Let us continue this long remembering, together.

You can learn more about our project at listento.earth.