Kirkjubæjarklaustur Forest Grove, Ísland, June 25th, 2021

The forest at Kirkjubaejarklaustur was planted beginning in the 1940s by the families at Kirkjubaejarklaustur farm, with help from local people from nearby farms. Farmers were fighting soil erosion east of Kirkjubaejarklaustur. The first trees were planted in 1945: 60,000 downy birch seedlings, followed by planting of other species such as Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), larch (Larix spp.) and pine (Pinus spp.) trees in the following years.
In 1966 The Icelandic Forest Service (Skógræktin) took over the supervision of the forest.The tallest trees in Iceland are growing here. The tallest one, a Sitka spruce planted in 1949, measured 27 meters tall in 2015.