Iceland tries to bring back trees razed by the Vikings Full story:
REFORESTING. Adalsteinn Sigurgeirsson, Deputy director of the Icelandic Forest Service takes part in tree planting at Lava filde near Thorlakshofn, Iceland on May 21, 2019. Photo by Halldor Kolbeins/AFP
Within a century, the settlers had cut down 97% of the original forests to serve as building material for houses and to make way for grazing pastures. The lack of trees means there isn't any vegetation to protect the soil from eroding and to store water, leading to extensive desertification despite the country's far northern location.
"This is one of the worst examples of soil erosion in Iceland on low land," said Hreinn Oskarsson, the service's head of strategy.Armed with a red"potti-putki", a Finnish designed tube-shaped tool, Oskarsson is planting lodgepole pines and Sitka spruces, two species of North American conifer trees, in an attempt to protect the nearby town of Thorlakshofn from recurring dust storms.
The problem with birches, according to Adalsteinn Sigurgeirsson, deputy director of the forest service, is that they aren't a"productive species". "Originally, they come from Alaska but now we have 30, 40, 50 year-old trees giving us seeds, so we collect that and we use that for forest seedlings production," Holmfridur Geirsdottir, a 56-year-old horticulturist and greenhouse owner, told AFP.But since Icelandic soil is low in nitrogen, the maturation process is slow and the average growth rate is only about one tenth of that observed in the Amazon rainforest.
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