In a new study published this week in the Journal of Biogeography, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, provide the first detailed description of the stunning array of fungi that make their home on the Polynesian island of Mo'orea.
The Torba Provincial Government Council (TPGC) has declared its famous Reef Islands as a conservation zone. TPGC Councillor, Edgard Howard, said the Council endorsed the decision in December. Mr. Howard said the main purpose of the declaration is to prohibit fishing activities in the area.
The Fijian government has made clear it won’t approve any proposal that damages the environment following a Newsroom investigation that exposed a New Zealand-registered company’s plan to excavate 2.5 hectares of coral reef at a Fijian island group to improve surf waves.
It was the most ambitious and logistically challenging island restoration project to date. The aim in 2015: to turn some of the world’s rarest birds back from a path to extinction by removing introduced predators from remote French Polynesian islands.
A historic effort to extinguish invasive rats on the ecologically sensitive island may not have worked as planned. Lord Howe Island was declared free of rodents in 2019, but the celebration may have been premature.
Despite islands contributing only 6.7% of land surface area, they harbor ~20% of the Earth’s biodiversity, but unfortunately also ~50% of the threatened species and 75% of the known extinctions since the European expansion around the globe. Due to their geological and geographic history and characteristics, islands act simultaneously as cradles of evolutionary diversity and museums of formerly widespread lineages—elements that permit islands to achieve an outstanding endemicity.
Scientists are sounding the alarm. The biodiversity of islands around the world is becoming increasingly threatened, due in large part to habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive species and climate change.
Research has shed new light on the impact of humans on islands' biodiversity. The findings show how human colonization altered forest across the islands of Macaronesia including the loss of landscape authenticity.
A special part of the recent northern group vaka tour was being able to experience the local foods, traditions and even some examples of local fishing practices carried out on each of the islands. Rakahanga is made up of a central lagoon surrounded by a rectangular shaped atoll and outer reef.
A new rule protecting biodiversity off the coast of Motiti Island came into effect this week.