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ICELAND: Giant National Park to Protect Largest Rivers, Watershed |
| January 28, 2005 |
 | Iceland's central highlands are rich in water and wildlife.
Photo: Bruno Girin/
DHD Multimedia Gallery |
The Icelandic government has announced plans to create what could become Europe’s largest national park, protecting key habitats and large, natural landscapes. The proposed national park includes the entire watershed of the largest free-flowing rivers in Iceland, the Joekulsa a Fjoellum. The park will protect this magnificent river from its source in the central highland glaciers to the northern coastline of Iceland, where it forms a rich delta, teeming with shorebirds and other wildlife.
In recent years, environmental organisations have criticized Iceland for damming and diverting its rivers for hydropower development. There are very few large rivers remaining in Iceland that are either not already developed or slated for development. WWF has been working together with the Iceland Nature Conservation Association (INCA) for years to get increased protection of the Icelandic highlands.
"WWF campaigned against Iceland’s decision to build an enormous hydropower project that harnessed two of the three largest rivers in the north," said Samantha Smith, Director of WWF’s International Arctic Programme. "The environmental consequences of that project are already serious. So it’s a fantastic change to be able to celebrate protection of Iceland’s biggest remaining wild river."
The proposed expansion of the Vatnajoekull glacier national park, which includes the Joekulsa a Fjoellum watershed, would cover more than 10,000 square kilometres – nearly one-tenth of Iceland’s land area. The proposal includes plans to consider expanding the park also to the south, possibly allowing for the creation of a "shore to shore" protected areas system, spanning Iceland from south to north. This would be a truly international environmental achievement. Though, as Magnus Johannesson, who chaired the committee that prepared the original protected areas proposal on behalf of the Ministry for the Environment, points out, this will be a long political process: having a park of this size established on the ground is not expected until 2010. That such a park is in the works, however, is a major victory for all those concerned with preserving Iceland’s natural heritage.
Excerpt from: WWF
Reproduced with permission from WWF. ©2004 WWF-- World Wide Fund For Nature (Formerly World Wildlife Fund). All rights reserved.
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