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Iceland Wants Foreigners to Stop Buying Its Land

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BM.GE
01.08.18 18:35
941
A little over a century ago, a young woman named Sigridur Tomasdottir threatened to throw herself into the icy gorge of Iceland’s iconic Gullfoss waterfall in a bid to stop English businessmen from turning it into a hydroelectric dam.

In the end, the proto eco-warrior was able to hold on to her life -- the leasing contract was canceled, allegedly because the money failed to turn up on time -- and the Golden Falls are today one of the country’s biggest tourist attractions.

Iceland’s first environmentalist prime minister, Katrin Jakobsdottir, has now picked up Tomasdottir’s baton by railing against foreign investors who have been purchasing vast swathes of the north Atlantic island’s pristine wilderness.

The 42-year-old prime minister, who heads the Left-Green Movement, wants "further restrictions" on land ownership, but says she will first wait for studies currently being carried out at four different ministries. Their conclusions are expected by the end of the summer.

"First and foremost I want to defend the nation’s sovereignty," Jakobsdottir said in a telephone interview in Reykjavik. "It matters to us that we can decide how the land is developed and utilized." As a member of the European Economic Area (a free trade zone linked with the European Union), the government has limited space for maneuver. Jakobsdottir says she’s seeking "restrictions based on the size and number" of plots owned. Iceland can already bloc purchases by non-Europeans, as it did in 2012, when it prevented Chinese billionaire Huang Nubo from snapping up a 300-square kilometer piece of land in the north.

Her government is responding to growing complaints from farmers, many of whom resent the superior purchasing power of foreigner buyers and also question their motives. Iceland only achieved full independence from Denmark in 1944, and patriotic feelings continue to run high. Jakobsdottir’s ruling coalition is reliant on the support of the conservative Independence Party and the Progressives, the party of choice for farmers.

British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his associates own a total of 39 plots rich in fishing rivers, according to Icelandic newspaper Morgunbladid, while Sweden’s John Harald Orneberg and Switzerland’s Rudolf Lamprecht are two other fishing enthusiasts with deep pockets who have bought land on the north Atlantic island, according to local media reports.

Ratcliffe has said his main interest is in the local salmon population and that any tightening of the rules may prompt him to reconsider his future plans. "No one wants to be operating against the will of the authorities in a country," said his spokesman in Iceland, Gisli Asgeirsson.