15,000 volunteers queuing up to help Faroese nature

Every year, Visit Faroe Islands receives thousands of applications from people around the world who want to volunteer during the annual Closed for Maintenance programme.

It is a kind of community clean-up and maintenance day across the Faroe Islands, but only 80 chosen people from around the world are allowed to participate.

It is closed to regular tourism when volunteer work is taking place.

This year, nine projects had been selected for the volunteers to get busy with. Closed for Maintenance is run by local tourist offices, municipalities and Visit Faroe Islands.

In addition to the 80 selected foreigners who have all paid for their journey to the Faroes, 40 locals are also part of the big maintenance weekend across the 18 islands in the North Atlantic. 

One of the world’s best initiatives

To understand how it all works, we go back to February 2019. “The Faroe Islands are closed for maintenance” read the Visit Faroe Islands’ website on 20 February 2019.

The message was backed up by a video where Prime Minister, Aksel V. Johannesen, made it clear that the Faroe Islands would remain closed for two months for maintenance, but open for volunteers who wanted to come and help out with the work.

This created a lot of attention and headlines. CNN, New York Times, Der Spiegel, Forbes, the Guardian and many other major international media all covered this somewhat unusual initiative – which turned out to be a stunt, an ad that was paid for by Visit Faroe Islands. 

As campaigns go, Closed for Maintenance was an unparalleled success. More than 500 stories about the project were published, and read by nearly four million people. The World Economic Forum listed the project as one of the five best initiatives for the planet in 2019.

The Faroese themselves have also joined the project, for various reasons. We will come back to that. 

Tourists overtook volunteers’ work

The project’s practical impact for tourists in the mountainous country became very visible last year when a group of volunteers were working on the path up to Skálhøvdi, a small mountain on the island of Sandoy. 

One of their jobs was to place posts along the path for people to navigate by when trekking up the mountain.

Journalist Tórður Mikkelsen from Kringvarp Føroya, the public broadcaster, followed the volunteers’ work. He said that while they took a break, two tourists approached – following the same posts that the volunteers had just put down.

He filmed the entire episode, and posted it on Facebook where he jokingly concluded that there was an immediate payoff for the group’s work: The tourists actually overtook the volunteers who were maintaining and improving the trail for them.

In some places, the work involves creating or repairing trails.

Another group was undertaking a similar job on the small island of Hestur in 2021. The 16-person strong team would repair and register the various paths on the island. While they were at it, the island’s population doubled – from 16 to 32.

Tourists as part of the solution

The fact that 16 outsiders can double the number of people on an island says something about Faroese society. Tourism can quickly become overwhelming. 

The fact that two tourists could not follow a path all the way to the top of a mountain because is was under construction, highlights the need for systems like these to help people navigate the natural landscape. 

This fact is not lost on Visit Faroe Islands.

“Overtourism is a very controversial term. There are too many tourists concentrated in too few places. This is an international debate. With our initiative, we want to show that the tourists can be part of the solution and not the problem,” Guðrið Højgaard told Kringvarp Føroya TV.

In the same interview, the head of tourism mentioned Barcelona, Amsterdam and Venice as examples of destinations suffering from overtourism, while she this year has sent volunteers to places like Koltur, Gjógv and Bøur, where there are 0, 22 and 66 residents respectively, to help maintain and protect vulnerable landmarks and trail systems in Faroese nature.

This is something that is also of great benefit to the local Faroese.

“I now see just how happy the Faroese are for their trails being kept in such good condition,” Justinus Eidesgaard told Kringvarp Føroya. His words weigh heavily, as he has been a group leader for Closed for Maintenance for five years running.

Which brings us back to the fact that Closed for Maintenance is also something that benefits the Faroe Islands and Faroese.

That is something people in Sunda municipality can vouch for. It is home to one of the most-visited tourist attractions – Fossá – which sees more and more tourists coming each year.

The challenge has been the lack of a clear path to the spot most people want to take photos. As a result, people have been walking all over the place, causing unnecessary erosion.

This was solved in 2022 when the team from Closed for Maintenance created a trail and a platform to make it absolutely clear where people should be walking or standing when they want the perfect shot. 

This also pleases Hagastýrið, the local body that is responsible for the mountain and its condition. It means the area where people walk is restricted, thus reducing wear and tear.  

Several thousands apply to participate in the maintenance of the Faroe Islands.

The message is the same at Báta- og listasavnið, a museum for old boats and art in the town of Leirvík. Here too, the locals are happy about what the Closed for Maintenance volunteers have achieved.

In 2022, the town was visited by a group of volunteers who fixed an old stone staircase on the trail across the mountain to the neighbouring hamlet of Gøta.

“This is great for our tourists – and for locals – which we support,” they wrote on Facebook, posting a range of photos from the work.

Three years later, another group of volunteers from Visit Faroe Islands returned to the same municipality. This time, the trail up to the Støðlafjall mountain needed improving. Another success, the municipality website reported afterwards.

“We are thankful for the cooperation behind a project like this. The volunteers are without doubt helping create a safer and better experience for everyone who wants to enjoy the beautiful nature the mountain has to offer,” they wrote. 

The grand old man at Closed for Maintenance, Justinus Eidesgaard, also praises the municipality’s efforts in this initiative. He says they play a central role in making it happen. The municipality and the volunteers. 

“I don’t think this would have been possible without the help from the volunteers, because this is work that cannot be done by machines. You have to be there and use your own strength,” says Eidesgaard. 

From the Faroe Islands to Tasmania

When we wrote about this project for the first time five years ago, we mentioned that Visit Faroe Islands received 3,500 applications from people around the world who wanted to join Closed for Maintenance in 2019, and that Visit Faroe Islands wanted to repeat the success in 2020.

Read: Closing down the Faroes to attract more tourists – the Nordic Labour Journal

And they have done it every year since. Including during the Covid-19 pandemic, when Closed for Maintenance used locals and not tourists.

Since then, the idea has spread to Norway, New Zealand and Tasmania, where similar projects inspired by Closed for Maintenance operate. And the programme will most certainly be run again on the Faroe Islands in 2026.