ICV

Iceland Conservation Volunteers (ICV)

Each summer about 80-100 international volunteers take part in the Environmental Agency conservation programme. Together our volunteers now complete about 300 weeks of conservation work around Iceland every year.

The Environmental Agency of Iceland (Umhverfisstofnun) manages 117 protected areas (out of 120) and hosts volunteers from all over the world and works closely with several international organizations. 

It all began in 1977 in Jökulsárgljúfur, Vatnajökull National Park, with a team of 15 volunteers from the British organization BTCV. Today, after more than 4 decades of hard volunteer work, if you visit Iceland's national parks and nature reserves, most of the time you will walk on natural trails maintained by our ICV volunteers, on way marked tracks made by our volunteers, and you can enjoy restored landscapes that were damaged by human impact.

Our volunteers live and do projects in some of the most beautiful parts of Iceland throughout the summer. They gain experience of a wide range of practical conservation while living closely with local staff and other international volunteers. Although our projects are focused on the improvement, delimitation and maintenance of natural hiking trails in remote locations, volunteers are involved in other aspects of practical conservation management in nature protection areas including wilderness and heritage management projects, managing invasive plants or obliterating tracks made by illegal off-road driving. 

More information is available in the following pages. For enquires please contact us at: volunteer@ust.is