Dive Brief:
- A road-building project to establish a direct link between a coastal peninsula and the suburbs of the capital, Reykjavik, is stalled awaiting a Supreme Court of Iceland hearing on objections brought by environmentalists who say it will disturb nesting habitat — and by elf advocates who say it will disturb an area where elves live.
- The objections are no joke in a nation where the idea of elves is not a joke — the Associated Press reported that in a University of Iceland survey in 2007, 62% of the respondents said that elves existed or that it was possible they did.
- In the case of the highway from the Alftanes peninsula to the capital area, the elf advocates say the area is especially important because there is an elf church in the area.
Dive Insight:
Fighting roads with elves' interests is not an idea that just came to highway opponents. It has happened enough before that the Icelandic Road and Coastal Commission has a prepared response that says in those cases "issues have been settled by delaying the construction project at a certain point while the elves living there have supposedly moved on."
