100 stories from the hiking route

1989 – the inception of Eerik Kumari Award

Information

Topic

People and nature

Coordinates

Long-Lat WGS 84

Latitude: 58.7276772

Longitude: 23.9475982

L-EST 97

x: 6509783.9
y: 496964.6

Location

Penijõe-Aegviidu Hiking route

"Stepping in front of a large audience as a fresh laureate made me recall an old episode. At quarter to five in the morning of 13 May 1977, I stood at a street crossing in Narva-Jõesuu, microphone on a tripod, headphones on, and a tape recorder at my feet, as I listened to the croaking of a murder of crows, infuriated by a chicken hawk on a hunt. Suddenly, an old woman appeared in front of me from behind a fence. She was terribly startled, made a cross, and cried timidly, “Dear lord, already working!” This spontaneous cry will always stay in my mind, as that scared lady was the first one to call my activities work. (…) The Kumari Award proves that now the people active in nature conservation have also understood: a way of life can also be considered work. This idea needs further development first and foremost for those people who are creating values of intellectual culture dedicated to their mission in our nature conservation areas." (Fred Jüssi, 1989)

The ornithologist and naturalist Eerik Kumari, born in Kirbla village in 1912, had an important role in founding, studying and introducing Matsalu nature reserve.
The Eerik Kumari Award is Estonia’s most important nature preservation award, starting from 2010 it comes with the nature preservation gold badge. The first person deemed worthy of the Eerik Kumari Award in 1989 was nature enthusiast Fred Jüssi.