Reykjavík Grapevine - 15.07.2016, Blaðsíða 14

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Treating
The Heart
Of Iceland
Heart surgeon Tómas
Guðbjartsson says
we must do more to
preserve the highlands.
The heart of Iceland is at risk, ac-
cording to high-profile physician and
heart surgeon Tómas Guðbjartsson.
While Tómas may be best-known
around Reykjavík for his lectures
on heart disease and his support of
the Landspítali University Hospital,
when he made reference to the heart
at the TEDx Reykjavík conference on
May 28 he was speaking about an-
other passion of his: conserving the
Icelandic highlands.
Discovering the highlands
Tómas has felt connected to the high-
lands for his entire life. “I was offered
the opportunity as a child to travel with
my father, who is a geologist, as he was
taking people from America or Germa-
ny to the highlands and showing them
the geology of Iceland,” he explains. In
recent years, Tómas has regularly led
hiking trips into the highlands along-
side his work as a physician.
It all began in 1985, when Tómas,
who speaks German, began leading
Germans and Austrians through the
highlands because there was a short-
age of German-speaking guides. “At
the time, hiking was a sport in Ice-
land, but it was actually more foreign-
ers in the highlands than Icelanders,”
he says. “Many saw me as a little bit
of a strange guy for being interested
in this.”
Green energy?
The state of Iceland’s highlands—the
vast swath of land that occupies most
of the island between its coasts and
glaciers—has been of great concern
for environmentalists as more hy-
droelectricity dams and power cables
are built in the area. Last November,
the musician Björk and writer Andri
Snær Magnússon held a press confer-
ence at Gamla Bíó to call for a nature
preserve in the highlands.
When most people arrive in Ice-
land at the Keflavík airport, they
are greeted by an image of the high-
lands. It’s a dramatic advertisement
by Landsvirkjun, Iceland’s national
power company, which features a can-
yon near the controversial Kárahn-
júkar hydropower plant. “Welcome
to the land of renewable energy,” the
text on top of the image reads. “I’ve
been there a million times, and this
picture makes me sad,” Tómas says.
“Because, okay, this energy is maybe
green, but you are leaving scars.”
One way to get Icelanders more
motivated about protecting the high-
lands is to help them appreciate its
beauty, Tómas says. “Icelanders have
a bit of a minority complex about
themselves and their nature,” he ex-
plains. “They think, ‘It’s much more
beautiful in Canada, or it’s much
more beautiful in Colorado.’ But
when you take people to these areas
who have been all over the world and
they say, ‘Wow, this is something,’
then you realize yourself that this is
worth something.”
The effects of tourism
Although encouraging more
people to experience the highlands
might motivate them to protect the
area, Tómas also says he worries that
increasing numbers of tourists could
be damaging. When he began leading
tours of the highlands in the 80s, Tó-
mas says there were less than 200,000
people visiting Iceland each year. Now,
there are about 1.3 million tourists each
year, and he adds that this number is
growing by 30 percent annually.
“This is perhaps happening too
fast, at least for the highlands, be-
cause we haven’t built the infrastruc-
ture,” Tómas says. “This is a little bit
like having a party and you invite a lot
of people to the party, but you don’t
have enough seats for them.” One op-
tion Tómas says he thinks may help
balance tourism with concerns about
the environment would be to create a
special nature conservation area.
Although he acknowledges that
some people might criticise him for
being a “middle-aged professor in 101
Reykjavík” weighing in on the debate
over Iceland’s highlands, Tómas says
he thinks it’s important for high-pro-
file individuals such as himself to step
up. “I see it as a huge question for all
Icelanders,” he says. “Not just us living
now, but for future generations.”
INTERVIEW
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10 — 2016
14
shower themselves
in a public parking
lot. Naked as the day
they were born, the
four were oblivious to
passers-by as they used
a soapy brush that has scrubbed the shit
off thousands of cars to wash their own
skin in an open parking lot. When a local
objected, one of these tourists apparently
waved their genitals in the local’s general
direction, which of course sparked rau-
cous laughter from his cohorts. If we were
handing out Obnoxious Tourist of the
Year awards, we would have a four-way tie.
Speaking of food, milk has become al-
most emblematic of shady financial
dealings and political ties lately. The
reason? It recently came to light that MS,
the largest dairy company in Iceland,
has been selling its products to its own
companies for a much lower price than
they’d been charging their competitors.
But it doesn’t end there - after it came
to light that MS would be forced to pay
a hefty fine for this infraction, Ari Ed-
wald - the managing director of MS with
strong ties to the Independence Party -
told reporters bluntly that consumers
would be footing the bill for the fine. Cue a
massive popular movement to boycott MS
products and buy from small-time dairy
operators instead. Which, come to think
of it, would be a good idea regardless.
In lighter news, Pokémon Go is rockin’
in Iceland. Even though the game has
not been officially released here, you
can see all kinds of folks in Reykjavík
wandering aimlessly with their faces
in their smartphones, and the nature
of Iceland certainly lends itself to the
game. The preponderance of statues and
graffiti art downtown means tons of
Pokéstops, and the fact that even the ti-
niest village gets a church means you’re
never far from a Gym, no matter where
you are in the country. Except maybe the
Highlands, but we have it on good sourc-
es that you can catch a Jigglypuff there.
NEWS IN
BRIEF
CONT.
Words
ISAAC
WÜRMANN
Photo
ART BICNICK
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