Numerous Orgs Join Call To Make Highlands A State Park

More people have joined up with the crusade to make the Icelandic Highlands into a protected national park.

Artist Björk Guðmundsdóttir was amongst those in attendance at a public event held today, RÚV reports, wherein numerous organisations signed a public statement calling for the Highlands to be protected from development and be declared a national park.

“I didn’t come home for the music awards, but I came for this,” Björk told reporters. “This is where you need to fight. I feel we have always had a national park in the Highlands. It’s actually just a question of defining it, which sometimes can be a little tragic and a little contradictory, because what one finds most charming about the Highlands is how it is undefinable.”

The organisations who signed on represent people working in nature conservation, outdoor societies, and the tourism industry.

As reported, the initiative to protect the Highlands kicked off last November in the wake of government proposals to conduct development in the region.

“Iceland has a deadline,” said Björk at the time of the initiative’s launch. “Iceland currently has the largest untouched area of nature in Europe. The government has plans to build over 50 dams and power plants, and to start next year. This could end Iceland’s wilderness in just a few years. We propose to start a national park in our highlands. Surveys already to prove that the majority of Icelanders agree. We have eleven days in which to voice our opposition to these plans. We ask the world to join us against our government: to help us protect our wilderness.”