Iceland

Iceland is a young volcanic island sitting on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and its geological youth explains a very poor land biodiversity accompanied by an enormous marine richness. There are no extensive forests and no native reptiles or amphibians, and the vegetation is reduced to mosses, lichens, heaths and dwarf willows over lava fields. Its cliffs, on the other hand, sustain seabird colonies of continental scale: around half the world population of Atlantic puffin breeds on the island, alongside guillemots, fulmars and skuas. The wetlands of the north, around Lake Mývatn, bring together one of the greatest diversities of duck in the northern hemisphere, fuelled by the mass hatching of midges. At sea, the cold and productive waters of the north and west concentrate humpback whales, minke whales, sperm whales and the blue whale, and Skjálfandi bay, at Húsavík, is one of the most reliable whale-watching points in the North Atlantic.