But restoring even a portion of Iceland’s once-vast forests is a slow and seemingly endless task. “We have gained maybe half a percent in the last century.”Even in a small country like Iceland, a few million trees a year is just a drop in the bucket. “An important contributor to Iceland’s mitigation policy is planting trees,” said Gudmundur Halldorsson, research coordinator of the Soil Conservation Service of Iceland. They are now grown as saplings at greenhouses in Iceland, because importing live trees is prohibited. No one expects that one-quarter of Iceland will ever be covered in forests again.

Source: New York Times October 20, 2017 04:07 UTC