Halla Tomasdottir is  the executive director and co-founder of Audur capital - the only financial company left in Iceland currently recruiting staff. They set up in 2007, recruiting women, and committed to invest only in products they could understand. As a result, their clients are almost the only people in Iceland with savings intact. This is the full interview part of which was played on Women’s Hour in November. Here is the Scotsman column that made me decide to head north and see for myself how Iceland was responding to economic meltdown and here is the column that followed this visit.

This recording starts with angry punters at a demonstration outside the Icelandic parliament. Then I met up with Gudni Johannesson who  is a historian at Reykjavik University, Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir, a writer with Iceland Review and Alda Sigmundsdottir, the woman behind the cult website www.icelandweatherreport.com. And here are some photos as well.

As part of this Snow Queen end of year extra I recorded this half hour programme from Skalanes in East Iceland in June. This is where activists opposed hydro electric dams and lost – but realized the enormous dam-building drill could also force a tunnel through the mountains and connect their isolated communities. In other words, inspiring conservationists and very quick thinkers! For some context before you listen check out Scotsman Column I emailed over from Skalanes.