COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Sweden’s strong foraging culture could help determine how much radioactive fallout remains in the Scandinavian country 38 years after the nuclear explosion at Chernobyl.
The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority has asked mushroom pickers to send in samples of this season’s harvest for testing. The aim of the measurement project is to map the levels of Cesium-137 in mushrooms and see how much remains after the April 26, 1986 disaster at the Soviet nuclear power plant in what is now Ukraine.
Cesium, the main radioactive material released in the fallout, has a half-life of about 30 years. It can accumulate in the body and high levels are considered a risk.
The radiation watchdog is counting on the foraging lifestyle in Sweden, which is more than 60 percent forested, to support its research. In late summer, many Swedes spend days in the forest collecting berries, mushrooms and plants.
It involves collectors being asked for details about where they found their loot, though they don’t have to reveal where the beloved golden chanterelle mushroom is located.
Where such chanterelles are regularly produced – often called “the gold of the forest mushroom” – are closely guarded family secrets that can cause headaches for researchers in need of data points.
“It doesn’t have to be the exact location of the most secret chanterelle patch,” says Pål Andersson, a researcher at the Radiation Safety Authority.
Mushroom pickers are instructed to send edible mushrooms in double bags: at least 100 grams of fresh mushrooms or 20 grams of dried mushrooms, picked in 2024.
The Swedish Safety Authority has not announced when the results of the investigation are expected.
Dozens of people died immediately after the Chernobyl disaster, as radioactive fallout spread across Europe. The long-term death toll from radiation poisoning is unknown.
Swedish authorities were the first to detect radioactive fallout in Europe, forcing Soviet officials, who had tried to cover up the disaster, to speak openly about it a few days later.
In 2017, a state veterinary agency in the Czech Republic said that about half of all wild boars in the southwest of the country were radioactive and considered unsafe for consumption. The boars feed on an underground fungus that absorbs radioactivity from the ground. Similar problems with radioactive wild animals have been reported in Austria and Germany.
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Dazio reported from Berlin.
