Reykjavík Grapevine - 26.08.2016, Blaðsíða 10

The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 13 — 2016
10
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This has also been a
busy couple of weeks
where asylum seek-
ers are concerned.
Nigerian asylum seeker Regina
Osarumaese, who is about halfway
through her pregnancy and has two
very young boys, one of whom was
born in Iceland, went to Parliament
in a vain attempt to plead her case
directly with lawmakers. Afghan
mother and daughter Maryam Raísi
and Torpikey Farrash are also facing
deportation, and a petition is being
circulated to keep them in Iceland.
In addition, Iranian asylum seeker
Morteza Songolzadeh is set to be de-
ported in less than two weeks from
the time of this writing. The reason
for the deportations in all of these
cases? You guessed it: the Dublin
Regulation. Also known as the Direc-
torate of Immigration’s Time-Saving
Life-Ruining Rubber Stamp.
In lighter news, it seems not every-
one who plays Pokémon Go follows
the developers’ exortions to not tres-
pass when hunting. Caretakers at the
Akureyri Botanical Gardens have
complained that, due to their being
three Pokéstops and a Gym in the
gardens, Pokémon Go trainers have
been sneaking onto the grounds af-
ter closing, engaging in petty vandal-
ism and generally making a mess of
things. It is hoped that all Pokémon
Go trainers will speak up with one
voice and object in the strongest pos-
sible terms to this outlier behaviour,
which really makes us all look bad.
NEWS IN
BRIEF
Hangikjöt (smoked lamb), kindur
(sheep) and skyr (like thick yogurt)—
these are some Icelandic words that
pop up when you hear someone men-
tion farming in Iceland. Iceland has
a long agricultural tradition. Around
1850, about 90% of the population
worked as farmers, helping hands,
fishermen and tradesmen in rural ar-
eas, small towns and villages. Little
had changed in food production since
the 9th and 10th centuries. Today,
about 5,000 people work as farmers in
the agricultural sector (about 1.7% of
the population), not counting workers
in industries based around agricultur-
al products. The number of Icelandic
farms barely exceeds 4,000.
As tough machines started to make
an impact on agriculture in the late
1930s and especially in the late 1940s, a
new chapter in the utilization of soils
with lush vegetation cover stated with
a bang after WWII. Belt-driven excava-
tors cut deep trenches into low-lying
wetlands, in order to turn them into
drier fields, mostly for hay-making or
grazing. Some money from the Mar-
shall Plan (the USA’s postwar econom-
ic aid scheme) was used for this pur-
pose. Trenches were connected to a
brook or a river, and within some years
the whole drainage system of the cho-
sen wetland area was changed. What
people did not realize was that this
caused increased emission of carbon
dioxide, as oxygen could react with the
wet peat-like content of the soil. Emis-
sions from each hectare of drying wet-
lands amounts to 4-6 tons of carbon
equivalents per year. In addition both
flora and fauna are heavily affected.
Originally, Icelandic wetlands cov-
ered about 10,000 square kilometres,
or roughly 10% of the island. The "dry-
ing-up" scheme resulted in 32,000 km
of trenches that affected 4,000 square
kilometres of wetlands. (That worked
out to 40% of Iceland’s total wetlands,
the highest such ratio in Europe.)
Sound evaluations of the needs of each
farm or whole regions were made only
in isolated cases, and the efforts soon
overstepped necessary and rational
boundaries.
Various experiments, supported
by the government and headed by ex-
perts, have shown that reclamation of
wetlands is a relatively simple process.
Now there are some restoration proj-
ects underway, under the auspices of
the State Soil Conservation Service.
The Paris Agreement on climate
calls for carbon sequestration as well
as reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
One effective method is restoration of
wetlands. Other methods include soil
reclamation in general, as well as res-
toration of birch woods plus afforesta-
tion with foreign tree species. Accord-
ing to specialist Dr. Ólafur Arnalds
(uncle of the same-named musician),
we could bind 2.2-4.3 million tons of
carbon equivalents per year by 2050,
counteracting total emissions from
various sources in Iceland by up to at
least 50%.
Written By
ARI TRAUSTI
Photo
ATLI
HARÐARSON
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NATURE
32,000 Km Of
Wetland Trenches!
On how we need to start ditching the ditches and preserve the wetlands
There are no
lighthouse-based
pokemon