Queen Mary professed her love of nature over the weekend after she dedicated new land to an existing deer haven.
The Danish queen visited the southern part of Jægersborg Hegn on Sunday afternoon to incorporate it into the existing Dyrehaven (Deer Haven) in Copenhagen. With the expansion, the Dyrehaven is now a quarter larger than it had previously been.
Accompanied by Magnus Heunicke, the Danish Minister for the Environment and a host of environmental guests, Queen Mary gave a speech at the Dyrehaven about nature, where she said: “Our nature is fantastic—but it is also fragile. That is why we must take care of it. We do this, among other things, by letting it take care of itself and by converting forest into untouched forest and nature into wild nature.”
Following the speech, Queen Mary released two deer into the Dyrehaven that have a special connection to the regal history of the nature reserve: they are both descended from deer at the original Dyrehaven, which was fenced in in 1669 by King Frederik III.
Queen Mary spoke of the deer in her speech, saying: “The roe deer, fallow deer and sika deer that we can see today grazing between trunks and in clearings descend from the time of Frederik III. They have shaped the garden into what it is today. Because here in the forest, every animal has a role to play.
“The deer eat bark and shoots and keep the vegetation down so that the sun reaches the forest floor and gives life to insects, amphibians and fungi, which in turn provide food for birds, among others.”
The Queen also paid tribute to her husband’s accession by unveiling King Frederik’s monogram on the red gate at Dyrehaven. It is tradition within the haven that the monogram is changed with every new reign.
She said: “Let the new monogram remind us that after one generation comes a new one, and future generations, like us, need a diverse nature in balance.”
Read Queen Mary’s full speech here.
