Conservation Volunteer Alliance (CVA)
The Nature Conservation Agency of Iceland has been a member of the Conservation Volunteers Alliance. CVA was an affiliation of European environmental volunteering organisations established in 1999 as a not-for-profit organisation, registered in the United Kingdom.
Conservation Volunteers Alliance has been the voice of over a million volunteers throughout Europe working in local communities, taking practical hands-on action to conserve and improve the health of our environment. CVA stopped its activities in 2015.
In partnership with CVA, from 2011 to 2014, the Nature Conservation Agency of Iceland organised the Big Green Weekend every October. Since 2015, the Agency organises the "Græna Helgi", a continuation of this project with Icelandic high school students and their teachers, in late August – beginning of September.
We have our application available on the website www.environmentjob.co.uk.
Collaboration with the Lebanese Conservation Volunteers
In year 2015, ICV had the pleasure to host a volunteer from Lebanon. In 2016, he began to work for Arcenciel, a Lebanese NGO and established the Lebanese Conservation Volunteers, which is a program that focuses on nature conservation through the restoring and maintenance of the trail system, similar to the ICV program.
Two ICV volunteer leaders assisted the LCV in training local leaders and advising the managers of natural areas in different types of actions to repair and maintain natural trails in Lebanon.
Grundtvig – Learning partnership project
This project began in 2008 and is made up of eight partners. The project is being coordinated by EUROPARC Germany and the other partners are from Latvia, Romania, Lithuania, Spain, Italy and UK. The aim of this project is to establish an international network that involves both our staff and volunteers in workshops and exchanges.
One of the main objectives of the partnership is to improve volunteer project management by learning from each other.
Leonardo da Vinci – Transfer of innovations project
Nature Conservation Agency of Iceland has received Leonardo funding to develop support and assessment materials within the European Qualifications Framework for Environmental Conservation. The project will bring existing materials together and reformat or produce new materials to enable partners in each country to provide accredited training for staff and volunteers.
Leonardo da Vinci - Community vocational training action project
The project began in 2005 and was coordinated by BTCV and received EU Leonardo da Vinci funding. Our partners include organizations from Estonia, Bulgaria and Greece.
The aim of this project is to reward people who are volunteering in environmental work by giving them the opportunity to have their work officially validated, recognized and accredited. Development work here in Iceland has focused on hiking trail design and maintenance and volunteer team leadership training.
Socrates programme
This was the first European project that the Nature Conservation Agency volunteer programme was involved in. The partnership ran from 2003 to 2005 and the project's aim was to promote lifelong informal learning through environmental volunteering.
Grey4Green ERASMUS+ project
Grey4Green is a pioneering initiative dedicated to fostering active ageing and climate action by empowering senior citizens to participate in nature conservation volunteering programmes. The project not only creates opportunities for seniors to contribute meaningfully to environmental sustainability but also provides essential training for professionals working in the third-age sector. Through its eLearning platform, Grey4Green gives participants the knowledge and the tools needed to engage in conservation efforts. The Online Observatory serves as a hub for connecting seniors with volunteering opportunities, making it easy to find and join nature-focused projects. This ERASMUS+ project was also an occasion for 5 countries (Denmark, Cyprus, France, Iceland and Portugal) to share their knowledge and experiences in volunteering - all the material available on the Grey4Green website is thus available in the 5 languages of the partners. For more information, you can visit the website: https://grey4green.eu/