Iceland review - 2002, Page 69

ICELAND REVIEW 67
Sellafield in the UK,” says Fridleifsdóttir.
She adds that it has been a matter of great
concern to the Icelandic Government in
recent years that Tc-99 (technetium) from
Sellafield has been released in increasing
quantities. Measurements in Norway indi-
cate that if this continues, Iceland will start
to show increased measurements of tech-
netium in the future. “The British govern-
ment has, within the OSPAR convention,
made a commitment to make a concerted
effort to decrease the release of radioactive
material into the environment,”
Fridleifsdóttir states, continuing, “We
would have liked to have made more
progress in this matter, but according to the
convention, in 2020 there should be no
abnormal radioactivity in the ocean, some-
thing that the British will have to comply
with by then. Unfortunately, the British
have not yet decided to shut down Sellafield
and will continue to release nuclear waste
into the ocean until 2006.” Fridleifsdóttir
explains that this waste goes up towards the
west coast of Norway, to the Svalbard area
and then follows the Greenland coast
towards Iceland – a process taking many
years, and the radioactivity, of course,
extremely diluted by the time it gets to
Iceland. “It is decreased by a thousandfold
when it gets to Iceland. Even though the
dangers are small, we want to keep the
ocean clean. We don’t want anyone to ruin
what we have here.”
Leading the way
Another issue important to Icelanders is
decreasing pollution from land-based
sources. Most of the world’s countries are
working on an agenda on how each of them
intends to decrease this kind of pollution.
Iceland is the second country to hand in
their agenda, after Canada.
Fridleifsdóttir explains that Iceland is
also working with AMAP (Arctic monitor-
ing and assessment programme), which is a
work group studying the condition of the
Arctic. An extensive report on the state of
the Arctic has shown that compared to the
rest of the world, the Arctic has remained
clean and virtually unpolluted. The AMAP
report states that POP pollution cannot be
traced to any known source in the northern
hemisphere.
“It is important that we have environmen-
tal topics under control here in Iceland in
order to make similar demands of other
countries,” says Fridleifsdóttir. “We have
undertaken a lot of work internationally and
we have been recognised as a leading coun-
try in the field. Our latest success is our
work with UNEP (United Nations
Environmental Programme). We made a
suggestion that a regular assessment be
made on the state of the world’s oceans. We
want people to become more aware of the
pollution dangers to the sea, and this sug-
gestion will be accepted at an international
meeting of environmental ministers in
Johannesburg later this year. The United
Nations will, from now on, conduct a regu-
lar report on the state of the world’s oceans
to stress the importance of the oceans to
humans. If the ocean is polluted, this will
have enormous effects on the economy
around the world and the life of humans.
The ocean is, after all, a great source of food
to a majority of the world’s population.
Icelanders have to put the protection of the
ocean first. “
Anna Margrét Björnsson is a staff writer.
I N T E R V I E W
can also imitate hormones and cause hor-
monal imbalances in animals, as well as
being a cause of cancer.
“Some of these chemicals, particularly
the pesticides, are mainly used around the
equator,” says Fridleifsdóttir. “They are
released into the atmosphere, rain down into
the ocean and may eventually accumulate in
the Arctic. This is a threat coming from out-
side of Iceland, making international co-
operation very important. Most of the pro-
duction and usage of POPs takes place in
the developing countries. We have taken a
big step towards this matter now, but of
course there will be other chemicals in the
future posing a serious threat. We can see
today that these chemicals have been
reduced in our oceans, although, of course,
the level of chemicals in our oceans was
extremely low to begin with.”
Measurements in Iceland show that POPs
in humans are well below danger levels.
The concentration of POPs in human blood
is a little higher than on the European conti-
nent, but lower than in Greenland and
among the Canadian Inuits. Recent research
on whether dioxin was present in Icelandic
seafood show that dioxin is only present in
very small quantities in the North Atlantic
Ocean, and in no way above what is consid-
ered normal in seafood in this area.
Consumption of Icelandic seafood therefore
remains a safe and healthy option.
No to Sellafield
Fridleifsdóttir explains that Iceland has
been putting pressure on the international
community to keep radioactive materials at
bay. “These are dangers that we need to
address right now. Nuclear waste dumped in
the Barents Sea coming from northwest
Russia is a major concern, and the
Scandinavian countries, the EU and the US
have worked together to identify the prob-
lem and provide resources to clean up the
waste. An accident occurring in this area
would have a disastrous effect on the
seafood market. Even if the accident had no
notable effect on the seafood in Icelandic
waters, the market is so sensitive that con-
sumers would automatically be deterred.
We have co-operated with different coun-
tries regarding the discharge coming from
“It is important that we have environmental topics
under control here in Iceland in order to make similar
demands of other countries. We have undertaken a lot
of work internationally and we have been recognised
as a leading country in the field.”
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