The practice of poisoning or sedating eiders’ predators was once widespread in Iceland, carried out by farmers and government officials alike. Such techniques may have saved the lives of countless ducks, but they have historically proved highly destructive to the island’s ecosystem. In the early 1980s, for example, more than 4,000 ravens were killed per year under the country’s pest control programme. Worse, the disappearance of Iceland’s white-tailed eagle, which almost went extinct in the 1960s, has been attributed partly to the activities of eiderdown farmers. Although eagle numbers have now recovered, their torrid history speaks of what Andri Snær Magnason, himself an eiderdown farmer, calls the “dark side” of the eiderdown trade: however virtuous harvesters may be, they have a strong incentive to kill any species that threatens the prized bird.
The recent history of the Westfjords is really the story of rural depopulation, of a vanishing culture next to the Arctic Circle. Over the past decade, countless farmers have packed up and left the region, tired of the weather, isolation and poor roads. The region’s tunnels and bridges, intended to increase mobility, have served as escape routes, emptying the fjords of Icelanders. “The government is always making it harder for people”, Magnús said. “There’s so little money in it, being a farmer, it’s becoming a lifestyle choice.”
Unlike many livestock farms in the Westfjords, eider farms are still populated, their down a source of stable income. Faced with rising costs and falling profits, the brothers stopped sheep-farming in 1990. Instead, they chose to specialise in eiderdown. “It’s like a family thing”, Alexíus said. “Everybody helps out.”
Edward Posnett
I’m generally fascinated by all things Iceland, so I couldn’t skip this article about… farming duck feathers… I was a bit puzzled by the tone of the writer, a kind of silent awe, as if it’s some sort of unique activity – maybe it’s unknown in the UK, but down pillows are still pretty common in Romania, as is plucking ducks and geese. Sadly, in this case, it’s also a story about the heavy human impact on the fragile island ecosystem of Iceland – as the massive culling of trees, which Icelanders are now painstakingly trying to grow back. Most traditional activities can’t be practiced at the large scale necessary for our globalized world, so I think it’s best to find alternatives, both for the farmers and for the products, rather than continuing to harm the environment with excessive farming.