Parks & Reserves: Vatnajökull National Park

One of the largest national parks in Europe, the "Vatnajökull National Park, established in 2008, encompasses not only all of Vatnajökull glacier but also extensive surrounding areas. These include the national parks previously existing at Skaftafell in the south and Jökulsárgljúfur in the north, so that today's national park covers 14% of Iceland . . . The unique qualities of Vatnajökull National Park are primarily its great variety of landscape features, created by the combined forces of rivers, glacial ice, and volcanic and geothermal activity." The park is home to a host of arctic wildlife that have adapted to its cold conditions, including reindeer, seals, and seagulls. "The establishment of the Vatnajökull National Park is related to a major national environmental movement in the 1990s to protect the Icelandic Highlands as one of Europe's largest wilderness areas against physical fragmentations such as dams, power lines and roads."