" ...though we travel the world to find the beautiful,
we must carry it with us, or we find it not "
Emerson (1803-1882)

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Sad times for Iceland

Most of us from the U.K. are all too painfully aware of the environmental damage that up to 60 million people can make over a few millenia (some, although not all of it unavoidable). Much of the human damage seen today in the U.K. is historic: over 6000 years of human settlement on a small, temperate island takes its toll. It seems that since the agricultural advancements of the past couple of centuries, the irreversible loss of our semi-natural habitats, the potential for devastating agricultural diseases related to intensive farming practises, and other problems of human overcrowding are only recently being acknowledged. Deserved attention is only now being given to these factors.

Over here in Iceland the habitat remains relatively pristine in comparison. All bodes well, as for the size of the place, there is a very low human population of less than 300 000, (in an area approximately half the size of the whole of the British Isles). For those living over here my impression is that there is good infra-structure and communities are very adequately developed; human quality of life and standards of living are high and comfortable. Somewhat deceptively, it seems that Nature still reigns supreme - step outside your cozy community and the environment here is pretty hostile for humans: only 1/7th of the land area is vegetated, and the rest is largely composed of gravel (sand) deserts, glaciers, volcanic lava and boulders. Iceland seems by first impression to be an area of remarkable landscapes and little-disturbance, precariously perched on the tip of Europe.

However, although gateway to the Arctic (for millions of seabirds, waders and marine life), and independent in so many ways, Iceland remains a part of Europe. And, in being part of Europe, this means a relentless political yearning for technological advancement, economic growth and... er, habitat destruction?

I am not a politician, but it takes little effort to appreciate that relatively cheap energy might be harnessed, bought, and traded using the extensive natural resource potential of Iceland´s natural thermal water sources, deep gorges and powerful rivers...

But where are the constraints to large-scale development, and what limits are set by the Icelandic Government/agencies to prevent the misuse of technology, and to set standards to keep in check the potential for over-development?

A recent dam construction project in East Iceland´s rugged interior, has been a political 'hot' issue, and one example. There was there was some oppostion to the development of this 57 square km reservoir system, built to supply hydro-power for an alumininium smelter owned by a U.S. company. But planning and development bulldozed ahead anyway, and now the country seems to have forgotten there was ever opposition.

See this recent BBC link for more info on the Karahnjkukar Dam. It also made the international news prior to construction.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/6453703.stm
and here´s a link to a friend out here who is also blogging/ranting about this topic currently, and who prompted me to write this posting (in case you´d like further info./anothers views on this)

http://www.whereiskelso.blogspot.com/

Other links on this...

http://www.savingiceland.org/

(this is a rather emotive website: unsure of it´s authorship (i.e. it is not Icelandic I don´t think), but it has some interesting stories nonetheless and worth a look if you have any interest in this topic)

I wonder what might happen next time such a project is planned? The very same, I fear.


I don´t know if many people outside Iceland realise what is going on here, and the speed at which so-called progress is taking place... I didn´t, and as I don´t speak the language and am not integrated within the culture I feel rather impotent to react. I guess writing this posting is just an attempt to raise some international awareness from my blog-reading buddies back home. It was a shock to me to discover how rapidly Iceland may be losing it´s world famous landscapes. I think these are sad times for Iceland.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Changes


I have switched to a new place in town. New address: Austurgata 9, 340-Stykkishólmur, which is literally down the road from my last location (as are most places in this small town...!). I had to move as the flat was likely to be mobbed by a bunch of Uni student transients during the summer: I was forewarned there would be a lot of comings and goings with new folk passing through for short fieldwork sejourns. It was best to up sticks and move. This is a super, old house. It is a very different place to the last: from IKEA to original furniture! (Nice).



















And - although spring can´t be said to have completely sprung in town - I was also recently off up to the (more) Frozen North for an Ísfestival near Akureyi with the Icelandic Alpine Club - this was a long weekend of ice-climbing and socialising (not eating ice-cream, as one friend suggested might be happening....).
... and here´s a few of my own (although I must credit the 2nd photo here to someone else, a guy called Gummi who takes rather good photos of ice with a massive camera he insists on lugging up routes with him).











I have also been catching up with friend Yvonne Sell (from Calgary ´03 Days) who was up visiting from London last weekend. It was really great to see a familiar face over here. We managed to do a fair few touristy things, mostly on the famous Golden Circle tour from Reykjavík, where you can experience volcanoes, spouting geysirs, waterfalls and colliding continental plates!
Brrrr. Ice cold conditions within the crater of Kerið.
This is Strokker the geysir in action, which spouts boiling water every few minutes and is located a mere few metres from Iceland´s famous - and originally named - 'Geysir' geysir (Geysir seems to be inactive these days, and Strokker now the main attraction).



Exploring Þingvellir, which is the former seat of Iceland´s parliment, positioned right on the rift between two tectonic plates: North America to the left and Europe to the right. Very fitting for a the two of us we felt, with our tourist mix of Canadian/British heritage.


Gullfoss is a very spectacular twin waterfall - the second chute is 70m deep/high. It was noisy, wet and cold there and a breathtakingly dramatic sight in an otherwise quite remarkably flat area of countryside.



Plus.... Yvonne and I snuck in a bit of an ice-climb (or two) over her visit, and made this beautiful snow-woman as the weather turned to custard (you can see we were very proud of her - but I do question myself: why am I still wearing my climbing lid?). By the way, the Chelsea hat on Yvonne was purely for practical purposes only.... (Funny what you can buy in the Stykkishólmur 'Olís' gas-station when on a mission for 'something warm that fits under a climbing helmet'...).