conservationists have made management assess-
ments. The remedies identified are often the same:
control exotics, halt or reverse habitat loss, prevent
hunting, assist breeding of endangered species, enlist
political and legislative support, educate and enthuse
the people to improve compliance and cooperation in
meeting management goals. It is important, finally, to
consider whether there are any special considerations
on the human side of the equation which must be
included in conservation thinking.
In many respects, oceanic islands are peculiar
environments, both biotically (high proportion of
endemics, disharmonic, etc.) and abiotically (expe-
riencing wave action from all sides, tending to have
small hydrological catchments, peculiar geologies,
etc.) (Nunn 2004). Insular peoples have commonly
evolved distinctive cultures and retain a strong
allegiance to both home and culture (Beller et al.
1990). It may be worth noting also that insularity
may provide essentially ecological problems for
humans. Examples include the extermination of
entire cultures, such as the Caribs of the Caribbean,
killed off by disease introduced by Europeans; the
introduction of malaria into Mauritius in the 1860s,
which led to the death of 20% of the capital’s popu-
lation; and a decline of perhaps 50% in the popula-
tion of Hawaii in the 25 years following the arrival
in 1778 of Europeans, who brought diseases such as
syphilis, tuberculosis, and influenza (Cuddihy and
Stone 1990). Less directly, an epidemic of swine
fever hit São Tomé and Principe in 1978, wiping out
their entire pig population, and causing an 11-fold
increase in meat imports in 3 years. Likewise, one
of the most precious resources with respect to
attracting outside finance is the possession of eco-
logical interest, to attract international support, or
tourist dollars. So, in many respects the problems of
the plants and animals of islands are faced also by
people on islands.
Yet, as islands include a vast array of climatic,
geographic, economic, social, political, and cultural
conditions, it is extremely difficult to offer meaning-
ful generalizations as to the problems facing island
peoples and how they influence and constrain the
options from a conservation management perspec-
tive. One approach might be to focus on those
islands holding most threatened species. For
instance, over 90% of threatened island species are
endemic to single geopolitical units and just 11 such
units are home to over half the threatened island
birds (Groombridge 1992, p. 245). However, even
this does not allow much in the way of generaliza-
tion, as the 11 units concerned are Cuba, Hawaii,
Indonesia, the Marquesas, Mauritius, New Zealand,
Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, São Tomé and
Príncipe, the Seychelles, and the Solomons. This is a
pretty mixed bag of islands and societies.
For the human societies and economies of
smaller islands (up to about 10 000 km^2 ) the prob-
lems include the following (Beller et al. 1990):●Lack of water.This provides a particular problem
for very small, low, narrow atolls, where salinity
conditions the entire land area, but can also affect
substantial, high islands such as Tenerife, where the
tourist and horticultural industries have been sus-
tained only on the back of the unsustainable mining
of geological reserves of water (see e.g. Ecker 1976).
●Susceptibility to rising sea level.For example,
the Bimini islanders have formally requested
advice from the UN on how to plan for their entire
land area being below the projected sea level
according to greenhouse-warming predictions. It is
not simply the loss of area that may be critical, but
for small states like the Bahamas, the potential loss
of much of their low-lying reservoirs of fresh water
(Stoddart and Walsh 1992) and/or of their EEZs.
●Vulnerability to storm or tectonic damage.
Hurricanes and cyclones can badly damage the
economy of a small island (where population and
key elements of infrastructure are often concen-
trated in just a few coastal localities), forcing the
human populations to exploit biological resources
themselves damaged by such events. Certain types
of islands are particularly prone to volcanic and tec-
tonic hazards and to related phenomena such as
tsunamis (Chapter 2). Such phenomena can deal a
savage blow to the sustainable human use of an
island, as evident from the devastation inflicted on
the island of Montserrat by eruptions in 1997.
●Climatic variation.The agricultural base of a
small island may be hard hit by atypical weather
conditions. The El Niño event of 1983 causedSUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ON ISLANDS: CONSTRAINTS AND REMEDIES 337