Reykjavík Grapevine - 23.05.2014, Blaðsíða 8

Iceland | For Dummies
World’s Mothers”
report issued by
the NGO Save The
Children, Iceland
is the fourth best
country in the
world to be a mother. Of the 178
countries reviewed, Finland is the
best, followed closely behind by Nor-
way and Sweden.
Picking up where April left off,
May saw several high profile la-
bour strikes in Iceland. Elementary
school teachers went on strike,
closing schools for a day while ne-
gotiators discussed salary increases.
And The Icelandic Airline Pilots'
Association (FÍA) also went on
strike, forcing Icelandair to cancel
26 flights to and from Keflavík Inter-
national Airport. It’s estimated that the
strike could cost the tourism industry
billions, not only in liability payments
to travellers on cancelled flights but
also in hotel room and car rental can-
cellations.
In the wake of this pilot strike and a
previous strike among airport employ-
ees, Minister of Interior Hanna Birna
(yep, her again—see above) introduced
a controversial new law forbidding
Icelandair pilots from striking.
Örnólfur Jónsson, the director of
FÍA, told reporters that the law will
be respected but that pilots may still
refuse to work overtime while a col-
lective bargaining agreement is pend-
ing. This may seem like an ineffective
bargaining tactic but in Iceland’s bus-
tling summer tourist season pilots are
frequently asked to fly additional trips
and work overtime. Case in point: Ice-
landair already had to cancel flights to
and from the US because pilots and
mechanics refused to work overtime
shifts.
Meanwhile, work is
steady for Director
Baltasar Kormákur.
After wrapping on
‘Everest,’ starring
Jake Gyllenhaal
and Josh Brolin, he’s already gearing
up to film and co-produce the English-
language epic ‘Vikings.’ And, appropri-
ately for our hometown hero, Baltasar
is also in talks to direct ‘Reykjavík,’
a historical drama which will chronicle
US President Ronald Reagan (played
by Michael Douglas) and Soviet Lead-
er Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1986 Reykjavík
Summit.
— Continued —
8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 06 — 2014
If we are to have any hope of discussing the very serious matter of an ecological col-lapse in the unique natural wonder of Lake Mývatn, we will have to get the terminology right. The
spherical form of the algae species Ae-
gagropila linnaei is called "marimo" in
Japan, which means "round weed," but
the Icelandic name for it, "kúluskítur"
means "sphere shit" or "shitball." The
most commonly used English name is,
however, lake balls.
If it were up to me I'd call them
"freshwater cojones."
Lake balls, please stop giggling, are
not strictly speaking a species of algae,
but simply one of three growth forms
of A. linnaei. One is a free-floating
filament. Another is when the algae
attach itself to rocks and form patches
on the shadowy side. The latter starts
to grow little spherical tufts that then
break free and become proper lake
balls, growing up to 10–15 centimetres
in diameter and even 30 centimetres
under ideal conditions.
So these algae grow some balls.
Maybe it is better to stick to calling
them marimo which might be all too
appropriate, as we may have seen the
last of the algal spheres in Mývatn. Ice-
landers may need to visit Lake Akan in
Japan to see marimo, for the "kúluskí-
tur" has disappeared in Mývatn.
Save the shitballs!
It might be too late for that. An Eng-
lish-language report published in May
this year by Dr. Árni Einarsson, direc-
tor of the Mývatn Research Station,
has the stark title: "The Lake Balls of
Mývatn — In Memoriam." The report
is full of sentences like: "While some
isolated lake balls may still exist in
Mývatn it is by now (2013) clear that
the communities of lake balls have
vanished." And: "Now, when they have
disappeared, there is room for some
nostalgic thoughts."
I'm gonna miss the
little shitballs.
Honestly, marimo is a perfectly good
word. In Japan you can even buy little
marimo dolls. The algal sphere is soft,
fluffy and a pretty, dark green colour.
If you Google for marimo photos, and
I advise using the word marimo here
and not shitballs, you will notice that
they look like ornamental shrubs, or
bright green Tribbles from the TV
show Star Trek.
But in Star Trek Tribbles grow
really quickly and are impos-
sible to get rid of. Can the
marimo make a comeback?
According to the Mývatn Research
Station, we should proceed to: "(1)
Reduce nutrient release from the hu-
man settlements as much as possible,
(2) map and monitor nutrients in the
groundwater and (3) map the situation
of lake balls in other lakes in Iceland."
Uh... does the phrase "nutrient
release from the human settle-
ments" mean that the shitballs
are being killed by human shit?
Sort of, but not the way you're pictur-
ing it. Essentially, the system of septic
tanks and filtering used in the Mývatn
area does not remove enough nutrients
from the sewage and other waste, which
then runs off into the lake. If there is an
overabundance of nutrients in the water,
other organisms thrive which makes life
for the marimo, and all other forms of
A. linnaei, very difficult. Now they are
gone.
Stop the shitflow and the shit-
balls will be okay, right?
The abundance of nutrients is not the
only cause. For decades the lake was
mined for diatomite, a type of silicate
that has lots of different applications,
from agriculture to dynamite. This left a
large hole in the lake bottom which has
destabilised the ecosystem of Mývatn,
and now both A. linnaei and another al-
gae species, Cladophora glomerata, have
disappeared almost completely. Both
are important sources of food for many
animals, from invertebrates to ducks.
I thought this would be a funny
story about aquatic plants with a
silly name but now I'm de-
pressed.
This is the second summer that there
have been reports of large-scale ecologi-
cal disasters in Iceland. Last year the
ecosystem of the river Lagarfljót and
its lake collapsed due to a hydroelec-
tric dam. Recently there has also been
news about sewage disposal problems in
Þingvallavatn, the lake at Þingvellir, but
hopefully that will not lead to anything
terrible.
Two aquatic ecosystem col-
lapses is plenty, thank you very
much.
As Dr. Árni Einarsson makes clear in
his report, this is a worldwide phe-
nomenon. Marimo, and indeed A. lin-
naei itself, has been vanishing in many
lakes around the world. Lakes with
marimo populations have seen an in-
crease in nutrients because of human
activity. In the heart-breaking final
chapter, titled "Canary in the Mine,"
he sets out a personal history of his
first encounter with and studies of ma-
rimo, and how it was to be a witness to
their disappearance. The final words
are simply: "The canary has died."
So What Are These Shitballs
I Keep Hearing About?
Words by Kári Tulinius @Kattullus
Illustration by Inga María Brynjarsdóttir
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