Country

Iceland: one ecoregion. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

One ecoregion describes all of Iceland: the Iceland boreal birch forests and alpine tundra, a boreal forest and taiga system of about 35,000 square miles covering the entire island. The name captures the two-part character precisely: hardy birch woodland in the sheltered lowlands, and open alpine tundra across the highlands and exposed ground. This is a cool, ocean-moderated subarctic climate where wind, a short growing season, and thin volcanic soils shape planting far more than winter minimums do. Gardeners work with boreal and alpine material: birch and other cold-hardy small trees where shelter allows, and low, cushion-forming and mat-forming tundra plants elsewhere. Establishing woody cover is slow but genuine here, and the ecoregion is judged able to reach half protection.