World Island Info

A new study of areas of high risk of future mammal extinction places 15 of the top 20 areas on the world’s islands, principally in the tropics.

The battle to save the Galapagos from goats, dogs, pigs, cats, donkeys, plants, insects, and humans.  Only 5% of the islands’ species have gone extinct since the Galapagos were discovered, but many are now threatened—and conservationists say they are losing the fight on inhabited islands in the group.

Rats have reappeared on Ulva Island, a biologically important island cleared of the invasive species in 1996.

Rats and other pests have decimated New Zealand’s endemic creatures, and offshore refuges such as Ulva are crucial to their survival.

Mother Jones reports on the possible fate of low-lying islands in the face of sea-level rise:

Today, roughly 1 million people live on coral islands worldwide, and many more millions live on low-lying real estate vulnerable to the rising waves. At risk are not just people, but unique human cultures, born and bred in watery isolation. Faced with inundation, some of these people are beginning to envision the wholesale abandonment of their nations.