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Click on the picture to watch an audio slideshow of the lambing season at Brimnes, a farm in the north of Iceland, in April 2008. Sheep farmer Arnar Gústafsson and his girlfriend Edda Björk take shifts watching over the nearly 300 ewes and helping them give birth 24/7 for about two months or until the last lamb is born. In Iceland, the arrival of lambs is synonymous with the arrival of summer. The lambing season is currently at its height.
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Located just 40 minutes by car and six minutes from Keflavík International Airport, Sandgerdi (“Sandy Hedge”) is a growing town of 1,700 with a storied history and loads to see. Read this special promotion about the hidden secrets of one of Iceland's most charming seaside villages.
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According to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS), 11 governments, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Israel, Mexico, Monaco, New Zealand, Peru and the USA, have issued a statement against Iceland’s commercial whaling and escalating trade in whale products.
Whaling in Iceland. Copyright: Icelandic Photo Agency.
The governments delivered the letter yesterday to Iceland’s representative in the United States, Ambassador Hjálmar W. Hannesson, a WDCS press release states.
Urdur Gunnarsdóttir, press officer at the Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs, confirmed that the letter had been delivered to Ambassador Hannesson, although only nine government representatives had been in attendance.
Hannesson used the opportunity to explain Iceland’s position on commercial whaling, which is the sustainable harnessing of marine products.
In the demarche—an official diplomatic protest—the countries called on Iceland to “seriously consider the benefits of eliminating commercial whaling and return to its previous position of acceptance of the moratorium on commercial whaling that was put in place by the International Whaling Commission in 1986.”
There has been a rapid increase in recent years both in the numbers of whales Iceland has killed and the amount of whale products exported.
A total of 273 fin whales, a species listed as endangered, have been killed in Iceland in the past two years, as compared to seven fin whales killed in the previous 20 years, while 141 minke whales were killed by Icelandic whalers in 2009 and 2010, WDCS states.
In November, the US Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke, had called on Iceland to stop its whaling and international trade in whale products in a strongly-worded message to the country’s Minister of Fisheries, Jón Bjarnason, and WDCS welcomes the fact that the US is reaching out to other countries to join in the effort to shut down whaling in Iceland.
In late December, WDCS, on behalf of a coalition of 19 conservation and animal welfare groups (representing tens of millions of US citizens), filed a formal request with the US Secretaries of Commerce and Interior, asking them to take trade actions against Iceland for its escalating defiance of international agreements on commercial whaling.
WDCS will continue to urge the US government to take the strongest possible action against Iceland for its defiance of international conservation regimes, the press release concludes.
Click here to read more about WDCS’s efforts to stop whaling in Iceland.
The young Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men, which has enjoyed incredible popularity in the US, will be on Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show, on June 29. This will be the second time that the band performs on an American talk show.
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The first archeological research in Iceland this year will begin at Hafnir in Reykjanes, southwest Iceland, on Monday. Archeologists will continue their study of a hut which may originate from 770-880 AD and predate the historical settlement of Iceland in 847.
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A small glacial burst occurred in the volcano Katla, which lies underneath the Mýrdalsjökull icecap in south Iceland, on April 28 and lasted a few days. The activity was registered by seismic monitors and increased conduction was measured in the river Múlakvísl until May 7.
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Kexland (“Biscuit Land”) is a new events organizer and tour operator based at the hip KEX Hostel in Reykjavík, where its plans were presented on Wednesday. These include a guided tour and exercise at the capital’s swimming pools with comedian Dóri DNA.
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The current issue of the quarterly magazine Iceland Review includes interviews with fashion photographer Saga Sig and conceptual artist Rúrí. Also, we take you to Grímsstaðir á Fjöllum, that desolate land coveted by a Chinese tycoon, and also explore Icelandic archeological remains. We discuss the Icelandic Church, the flourishing gaming industry, debate the future of Iceland’s energy resources and interview the president of the Icelandic National League of North America. Subscribe now and receive a free photo book by IR’s editor Páll Stefánsson of the Eyjafjallajökull eruptions. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and here to buy a gift subscription.
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REVIEWS
The Reykjavík Shorts&Docs was held in Reykjavík from May 6 to 9 in Bíó Paradís, and what an enriching experience it was to attend the festival.
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Shedding light on Iceland’s thousand-year history, as manifested in remains ranging from Viking graves to enchanted sites, Mannvist is a fundamental piece of writing. Ásta Andrésdóttir met with its author, archaeologist Birna Lárusdóttir.
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“The House Project” currently on display in Hafnarborg, the Hafnarfjörður Centre of Culture and Fine Art, is a new artwork by Hreinn Friðfinnsson consisting of a photography series of the three houses. His work is described as “a poetic and philosophical exploration of every day human experience.”
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