Fjölrit RALA - 05.12.1999, Page 6

PREFACE
There is a remarkable passage in the
Book of Icelanders written by the histo-
rian Ari the Leamed, in the early twelfth
century, in which he describes the land
found by the settlers as being “covered
with woods ffom mountain to shore.” In
the Sagas, - our renowned medieval sto-
ries written in the vemacular, - there are
trees everywhere. People would hide
there from their enemies for days, all
over the country; some of the woods
were too dense even to enter. In the clas-
sic work of Icelandic literature, Njal’s
saga, Njal himself and the other hero,
Gunnar, jointly owned a wood which
became the occasion of a fateful feud.
When Gunnar was about to go into
outlawry and was riding away, from his
farmstead to the shore to sail to Norway,
he looked back and suddenly spoke the
words that everyone in Iceland knows
and admires - “So lovely is the hillside
that it has never seemed to me as lovely
as now, with its pale fields and mown
meadows; and I will ride back home,
and not go anywhere at all” - whereupon
he tumed back to face certain death. In-
terestingly, fnany of the Sagas say that
such -and - such a place was “covered with woods at that time” which suggests that
something had changed radically over the three hundred years between the action of
the Sagas and their writing in the thirteenth century. Numerous place-names, where
there is now no vegetation cover, indicate that they were once green and flourishing:
holt, wooden hill; hagi, hagen, field; and vellir, grassy plains.
Did man realise the damage he caused? It is stated in an ancient law that “it is for-
bidden to graze the commons so much as to cause their value for grazing to diminish.”
Sustainable harvesting, then, is not a new concept. And there is more recent law to the
same effect. But somehow, man is slow to leam. Eroded areas and degraded highland
deserts are still grazed, even though we, as a prosperous nation, do not need to do this,
and even though we have the knowledge to produce enough food, without damaging
the land, in areas which are clearly well suited for grazing by livestock.
Today we know better, but we cannot blame our ancestors for the way they used
the land. They struggled for 1000 years simply to survive, and food production con-
trolled the number of children the nation could foster. Fortunately, this is no longer the
case.
Ms. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir with partícipants of
the Rangeiand Desertification Workshop during
a fieid excursion. Photos G. Johannesson.