Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.07.2015, Síða 8

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BREAKFAST,
LUNCH & DINNER
T EMPL AR A SUND 3 , 101 RE Y K JAV ÍK , T EL : 5711822, W W W.BERGSSON. IS
By Gabríel Benjamin
NEWS
IN
BRIEF
Continues Over...
Icelanders’ persistence in hunting
fin whales continues to enrage the
outside world, most recently attract-
ing the ire of a group of activists, a
celebrity and, potentially, a ruthless
world leader. Late June, activist group
Hard To Port commenced direct
action against whalers, kayaking
out to their ships, setting off flares,
and clambering onto a whale that
was about to be dragged to shore.
Meanwhile, former Baywatch star
and known PETA supporter Pamela
Anderson has tried to bring The
Bear into the fray, urging Russian
president Vladimir Putin to assist in
getting Iceland to cease whaling.
Back on dry land, employees of
the Vatnajökull National Park have
opened up a walking path north of
the newly formed Holuhraun lava
field. Despite the field still being hot,
tourists are apparently not too hot
on checking it out, with local tour
operators commenting that there
was seemingly no demand for tours
through the area.
Iceland’s fauna is on an upswing
these days. Firstly, the arctic fox
population of Northwest Iceland,
which seemed to be mysteriously
dying off last year, has made a full
recovery in 2015. Great news! Not
so great is the fact that those lovable
rascal ticks that started spreading
all over the country last year have
now become a permanent part of
our ecosystem—and a new species of
rash-inducing midges is similarly
attempting to find a home here.
I know that sounds boring, but please stick around. Basically, a law was passed allowing farm-ers to buy land that is currently owned by the Soil Conservation
Service of Iceland, which would quite
like to keep it. The government institu-
tion, over a century old, has a rather more
interesting name in Icelandic: Land-
græðslan, which translates to "Land
Healing."
That's so pleasant-sounding that it
almost has to be a euphemism for
something horrifying.
The reason Iceland needs loving care is
that for the first millennium of inhabi-
tation, Icelanders treated the ecosystem
the way a three-year-old treats a bucket
full of ice cream: first as a source of end-
less joy, and then as a receptacle for ice
cream vomit.
Icelandic glaciers were once ed-
ible?
To put it bluntly, from the first settle-
ment in the 9th century, Icelanders went
about extracting as much as they could
from the land and sea around it. Before
the Norse arrived from Scandinavia, the
only mammal living on the island was
the Arctic fox. The ecosystem had to deal
with heavy winters and frequent volca-
nic eruptions. Then humans arrived with
their most dangerous weapon: sheep.
Sheep are scary. With their vicious
horns. Maybe not as scary as a
volcano, but even a volcano would
be scarier with horns.
To survive volcanic ashfalls, the ecosys-
tem relied on trees that were tall enough
to stick out of the ash. If they survived,
their roots kept the soil in place, and
smaller plants could grow again. But
sheep ate saplings before they could
grow big enough. A millennium later
you end up with a desert covering huge
parts of the country. A century ago, Ice-
landers recognized that this needed to be
changed, which is when Landgræðslan
was founded, first as Sandgræðsla ríki-
sins ("Government Sand Healing").
They say the first step to solving a
problem is founding a government
institution.
And it has been wildly successful. Yes,
there have been questionable decisions
along the way, such as the importing
of non-native species, but the Icelandic
ecosystem has rebounded impressively
in areas managed by Landgræðslan. So
now this formerly useless heap of sand is
worth something.
And now a huge corporation
wants take over but the locals
fight back with love, unity, and
Steven Seagal.
In this case it is local farmers who want
to buy back land that was given to the
state or appropriated for the purposes of
soil conservation. The director of Land-
græðslan, Sveinn Runólfsson, told state
broadcaster RÚV that "many of these ar-
eas are useless for agriculture" and those
that could be used would need "severe
restrictions."
Local farmers in dispute with
nature conservationists... Steven
Seagal wouldn't know who to
punch.
The law that was passed by Parliament
allows farmers to buy land that once be-
longed to their farms, without an auction.
There are no provisions for restricted
use, other than that for the first ten years
after purchase the land can only be used
for agriculture. Which is strange if they
are indeed of no agricultural use.
Well, sheep are hardy creatures,
so if they go there and... oh, I see
the problem.
Two other things make this seem
strange. Sigurður Eyþórsson, the di-
rector of the Farmers' Association of
Iceland, told RÚV that farmers did
not need new pastures, but that they
wanted to reacquire land that had once
been part of their farms. That is pretty
different from what was said by the de-
fender of the law, Member of Parliament
Páll Jóhann Pálsson. He told RÚV that
"farmers need land and want to use it"
and wondered out loud whether "farm-
ers are not more trustworthy in taking
care of the land rather than having a
government institution do it."
Take that, government institu-
tion, let the farmers heal the land!
The thing is, the government institu-
tion agrees. One of Landgræðslan's most
successful programs is called "Bæn-
dur græða landið" (“Farmers Heal the
Land”). By cooperating, farmers and
the conservationists have accomplished
very much. But according to the Mem-
ber of Parliament, this law is meant to
encourage more agriculture. By allow-
ing farmers to buy land that is of little
agricultural use. Alarm bells did ring
when he mentioned that the provision
stating that land had to be used for agri-
culture for at least ten years meant that,
for example, it could not be sold for the
development of summer cottages.
And no one will want a summer
cottage ten years from now.
One suspicion is that the land is meant
to replace other land sold for non-agri-
cultural use, such as summer cottages,
or for tourism. If that is the case, the
recently regrown ecosystem might turn
to sand. And developed for summer cot-
tages a decade from now. But who wants
a summer cottage built on sand? A fool,
of course.
8 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 10 — 2015
So What's This Soil Conservation
Dispute I Keep Hearing About?
Words by Kári Tulinius @Kattullus
Illustration by Lóa Hjálmtýsdóttir
I C E L A N D 4 D U M M I E S
Iceland | Land Healing