The Icelandic Seal Center (ISC) was established in 2005 in the small village of Hvammstangi (appr. 600 inhabitants) in north Iceland. It is a nonprofit small sized enterprise with ca. 85 shareholders that are mostly people living in the area or with a connection to it. It´s main focus is on the endangered seal population in Iceland and how to promote and conduct a sustainable seal watching in Iceland. ISC has a full-time manager, one manager of the tourist information center/souvenir shop/museum that is average appr. 75% and 1-2 part-timers working 80-100% the summer season.
On the Vatnsnes peninsula close to Hvammstangi there are big seal colonies and some of the best seal watching spots in Iceland and ISC is often the first stop for guests interested in going seal watching. There we have a tourist information center and an exhibition about seals and walrus. There we give our gests the information they need for an enjoyable seal watching experience, introduce the “Code of Conduct” of seal watching to them and if they want to know more about the seals and/or support the ISC they can pay the admission fee to the exhibition/museum and get a huge amount of information. We often do lectures and guided tours for groups visiting us, have a yearly symposium, various lectures from visiting scientists, art events and more. Last year we got over 27 thousand guests at the ISC.
Once a year, in late July we do “The Great Seal Count” where we get volunteers to walk the appr. 100 km coastline in the Hvammstangi area and count seals. This is a nature monitoring activity with the goal of connecting the public more to nature and raising awareness about the Icelandic seal population and the dangerous situation it is in.
Due to the endangered status of the Icelandic seal population the ISC is focusing more and more on sustainable tourism and recently handed in the final report for project 2021-1-EL01-KA210-ADU-000034902 – STAR – Sustainable travellers a guide to environmental, touristic sustainability which we were partners in. The goals of the project were to allow for exchange of
information, development of sustainable practices to fight climate change and become sustainable and green, to use digital tools but also allow for the promotion of culture, history, identity and citizenship to foster. The project partners will create training resources and products that are well needed and can be used by adult trainers to enhance their training delivery and provide education that meets market standards. The sector is tourism, and the end users are the adults and entrepreneurs active in the tourism sector and trained by trainers.
ISC is also a partner in a project called Youth for Artic Nature (YAN). YAN is an international environmental education project based in Iceland. It aims to foster deeper connections in Arctic youth up to 30 years old to the local environments through place-based education, nature monitoring, and outdoor activities. Through our project, youth can get to know others who share their passion for nature in different arctic communities. We aim to encourage cultural exchanges between them, as well as with local and international Arctic scientists. The project is funded by NORA and The Icelandic Climate Fund (Rannís).
In late 2023 ISC started participating in the CE4RT project. The main objective of CE4RT is to directly support SME´s in transitioning to a circular and regenerative tourism business model thus enabling the future resilience of this sector. This is a collaborative project supporting a network of tourism SME´s across five partner European countries in the areas of Sustainable Practice, the Circular Economy and Regenerative Tourism. Circular Economy for Regenerative Tourism (CE4RT) is an EU (EISMEA) co-funded project across 5 partner countries in Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Poland and The Netherlands to directly support SMEs transitioning to circular and regenerative tourism business models.