Editor’s note: The new issue of Iceland Insider's print issue is out and ready to pick up if you are in Iceland or read in a digital format online. Here is my column from the new issue.
Land that could not be cultivated and didn’t have enough vegetation for even the rugged breed of Icelandic sheep to gnaw on, was for centuries considered pretty much worthless in Iceland.
This description fits the largest part of Iceland’s central highlands. That area was so bleak that in 1965 and 1967 a group of astronauts from NASA went there to practice in an environment similar to what they would later encounter on the moon.
The old farmer’s conviction of how to value land was hardwired into the minds of a big part of the nation for most of the 20th century. It all came down to how much profit could be drawn from a particular area.
Maybe this is still the prevailing school of thought in Iceland. What has changed, however, is that now the benchmark is neither crops nor nourishment for sheep, but tourists.
The untouched wilderness has been the biggest magnet for visitors to Iceland for decades. While tourism was a part-time player in Iceland’s economy, nature preservation was considered by many as a hobby for soft lefties, not something that could determine the nation’s financial well-being.
Flying that flag, politicians put into motion a huge hydroelectric project in the southeast part of the central highlands. It began in 2003 and was finished in 2007, and it left dammed rivers and a large reservoir in an area that was previously the second largest unspoiled wilderness in Europe.
It was a massively controversial project, but environmental groups did not have enough muscle to stop it, and polls also showed that the majority of the nation, not yet aware of the value and irreplaceability of pristine wilderness, was in favour of it.
How the tables have turned! Tourism is now Iceland’s most important business. For the last few years, it has accounted for more than a quarter of the country’s income from foreign sources, making it the largest export product.
And the most important resource for tourism is Iceland’s unspoiled nature. So now we have the environmentalists and the capitalists joining forces in the fight to save the highlands from encroaching development. That should be an unbreakable alliance.
Read more: Growing opposition against plans to erect high voltage power lines in the central highlands
Editor’s note: The new issue of Iceland Insider's print issue is out and ready to pick up if you are in Iceland or read in a digital format online. Here is my column from the new issue.
Land that could not be cultivated and didn’t have enough vegetation for even the rugged breed of Icelandic sheep to gnaw on, was for centuries considered pretty much worthless in Iceland.
This description fits the largest part of Iceland’s central highlands. That area was so bleak that in 1965 and 1967 a group of astronauts from NASA went there to practice in an environment similar to what they would later encounter on the moon.
The old farmer’s conviction of how to value land was hardwired into the minds of a big part of the nation for most of the 20th century. It all came down to how much profit could be drawn from a particular area.
Maybe this is still the prevailing school of thought in Iceland. What has changed, however, is that now the benchmark is neither crops nor nourishment for sheep, but tourists.
The untouched wilderness has been the biggest magnet for visitors to Iceland for decades. While tourism was a part-time player in Iceland’s economy, nature preservation was considered by many as a hobby for soft lefties, not something that could determine the nation’s financial well-being.
Flying that flag, politicians put into motion a huge hydroelectric project in the southeast part of the central highlands. It began in 2003 and was finished in 2007, and it left dammed rivers and a large reservoir in an area that was previously the second largest unspoiled wilderness in Europe.
It was a massively controversial project, but environmental groups did not have enough muscle to stop it, and polls also showed that the majority of the nation, not yet aware of the value and irreplaceability of pristine wilderness, was in favour of it.
How the tables have turned! Tourism is now Iceland’s most important business. For the last few years, it has accounted for more than a quarter of the country’s income from foreign sources, making it the largest export product.
And the most important resource for tourism is Iceland’s unspoiled nature. So now we have the environmentalists and the capitalists joining forces in the fight to save the highlands from encroaching development. That should be an unbreakable alliance.
Read more: Growing opposition against plans to erect high voltage power lines in the central highlands
