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ISLANDDIRECTORYBasic environmentaland geographic informationon the significantislands of the worldListedin: 
Introductionand explanation- GeneralDescription and Criteria for Inclusion- Kindsof information in the directory- Noteson using the directory- Cautionarynote on data quality- Originand AcknowledgementsIslandDirectory (listings accessing data sheets on 2,000 islands)- Country list- Alphabetical indexof islandsComparativetablesGEOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS- Islands by landarea- Islands by altitude(for islands over 400 m)- Islands by ocean- More isolatedislandsISLANDS BY GEOLOGICALTYPE- Atolls- Low islands- Raised coral islands- Volcanic islands- Continental islandsECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION- Islands by conservationimportance- Islands by totalendemic species- Islands by numberof endemic land birds- Islands with protectedareasECONOMY, SOCIETY,HUMAN IMPACT- Islands by populationdensity- Islands by humanimpact- Important islandsat riskToolsand sources- Explanation ofIsland Indicators- Model countryand island entries- Island DirectoryField List (complete description of each field in the directory)- References and sourcesUNEPISLANDS Web Site for other information resources on islands©Copyright - United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)Site created and maintainedby Arthur Dahl, Geneva - dahla@unep.chLast updated 14 September2004INTRODUCTIONAND EXPLANATIONIslands have long been noted for theirunique fauna and flora which are particularly vulnerable to disturbanceand destruction by human activities. They are also of interest forthe special adaptations of island societies, the difficulties of economicdevelopment in an island context, and the challenge of achieving sustainabledevelopment within limited island resources. With the increasingrate of global change, islands represent some of the most fragile and vulnerableresources on the planet.This Island Directory assembles informationon the significant islands of the world. It is intended to help thoseliving on islands or involved in island development and conservation tounderstand the environmental problems of islands, to identify islands withspecial problems or under particular threat, and to compare and classifyislands globally to show which islands may share common problems and beable to cooperate in solving those problems.GeneralDescription and Criteria for InclusionThis Island Directory provides an annotatedlist of nearly 2,000 of the significant islands of the world. Severalcriteria were used to determine how much detail is provided for the selectedislands. Islands over 17,000 square kilometres are too large to summarizein this directory format; each should have a book in itself, and receivesonly cursory treatment here. Only oceanic islands are included; thoseoccurring in freshwater bodies have not been covered. Small islandsare treated differently depending on their location. Small islandsclose to and not differing from nearby larger land areas are not listedseparately, whereas remote islands of similar size are generally covered. Finally, islands in shallow water (with depths of less than 100 metresto an adjacent land mass) have only been islands since the last ice ages,with less opportunity to develop unique biological features, and are thusnot treated in the same detail. In general, less effort has beenmade to collect and enter data for the lower priority islands (large, urban,or in shallow water) and many gaps in the information in this directoryabout these islands will be obvious.The format has been designed to summarizemany kinds of information to give an overview of the geographic, ecologicaland human interest of islands. Where the data available are sufficient,a variety of indicators are used to make listings and comparisons of islandseasier. The size of each entry has been adjusted to the amount ofdata entered.It will be apparent that the coverage inthis directory is very uneven. Some regions and groups are coveredin some detail, while for others it was not possible to obtain or entermuch information with the resources available. One of the purposesof this Internet edition is to encourage the compilation of informationto fill in the gaps in this directory. Similarly, some fieldshave been included in the database for which data do not generally exist,but which would be very useful for comparing islands or for respondingto particular problems. Again it is hoped this will stimulate peopleto collect such information.The deficiencies in the data availablemean that many of the means for comparing and rating island characteristicsin this directory cannot be used to their full potential at present. A zero value or the absence of an entry cannot be taken as meaning morethan that the information was not available at the time of compilation.While the fact that certain islands stand out for their environmental importancein this directory is significant, the converse is not the case; islandthat do not stand out may only be poorly documented, not uninteresting. This problem should be diminished as more information is compiled.The islands are grouped by ocean and country. Some appropriate information on each country or territory, such as theland area, sea area within the exclusive economic zone, population, populationdensity and estimated growth rate, authority responsible for conservation/environment,and legislation for conservation, is provided under the country headingsat appropriate places in the directory. Within these groupings, islandsare listed in alphabetical order.Kindsof information in the directoryThere is a page for each countryor island territory (where this may have separate legal or administrativearrangements) (see model country page),and a page with entries for each island within the country (see model islandentry). The country pages include a count of the number of islandsby size, and a variety of demographic, economic, social and environmentalstatistics at the country level. There are text entries for administrativebodies, legislation and non-governmental organizations.Several kinds of information have beencollected for each island when available, as described below. A complete listing of all the fields in the directory is given in the FieldList.a) The present namein English, the official name if in another language, and significant formernames if widely used in the literature.b) Basic descriptiveinformation on each island, such as its geographic co-ordinates,land area (in square kilometres) and maximum altitude or elevation (inmetres), submerged area down tothe 100 metre depth contour (in squarekilometres), length of shoreline (in kilometres), and isolation (distanceto nearest equivalent or larger island, island group and continent).c) The islandtype (continental, volcanic, atoll, low island, raised corallimestone, or some combination of these), age, geology and soil types.d) Climate,rainfall, temperatures (maximum, minimum and mean; air and ocean).e) The major natural and humancatastrophic threats which could endangeran already vulnerable population or feature, such as cyclones (hurricanesor typhoons); volcanic eruptions; earthquakes, tsunamis (tidal waves),landslides and other effects of geological instability; severe drought;susceptibility to major fires; high risk of oil spills; etc.f) The history of humanoccupation, historic and prehistoric populations and dates ofcolonization, present population (with the year of the census or estimate)and density (inhabitants per square kilometre). In the absence ofa population figure, an island should be assumed to be inhabited unlessotherwise stated.g) Indicators of humanimpact, such as urban areas, airports, types of economic activityand agriculture, etc.; the state of resources (soil, water, etc.); andselected indicators of economicactivity.h) A brief list of the majorecosystem types or biomes on and aroundthe island, where this information is available. For some areas thesedata are very incomplete, and the failure to mention an ecosystem doesnot mean that it is not present, but only not recorded.i) Featuresof special interest for conservation, such as seabird rookeries,sea turtle nesting areas, marine mammal resting or breeding sites, lakesor other unusual habitats, active volcanoes, and other information on theisland's conservation importance.j) The size and diversity ofthe flora and fauna, such as the totalnumbers of species, at least in the best-known categories, where such figureswere available.k) The numbers of endemicspecies (those species occurring only on a particular islandor island group) in the best studied plant and animal categories (plants,butterflies, land snails, reptiles/amphibians, birds, mammals, and marinelife), as a convenient measure of evolutionary interest or uniqueness;also the number of species classified as Endangered, Vulnerable, Rare andIndeterminate, according to IUCN criteria.l) The scientific and commonnames of endemic speciesand other species of special conservation interest, with brief informationon their habitats and population sizes, and their status (Endangered, Vulnerable,Rare, Indeterminate, or K -insufficiently known). The status is capitalizedif determined by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre or indicatedin a Red Data Book, and in lower case if obtained from other sources. An asterisk (*) after the name shows that there is some question concerningthe taxonomic status of the species.m) Information on introducedbiota, particularly alien or feral species or diseases knownto be invasive on islands and to cause major conservation problems.n) The names of terrestrialand marine protected areas on the islandand their area in hectares. Recent official proposals for protectedareas may also listed for some countries.o) Referencesto key papers with information on the island.p) For islands with sufficientdata, the entry in the directory includes a series of indicatorsused to evaluate certain island characteristics. These include theecosystem richness reflectingthe number of types of ecosystems present, thespeciesrichness based on the number of species, the individual island andisland group endemics, and the numberof special features, all evaluatedseparately for terrestrial and marine areas. Other general islandindicators are the natural vulnerabilitybased on the kinds of risks of natural or human catastrophes, the naturalconservation status or protectionprovided by the island's inherent situation, the reliabilityof the data on which the listing and evaluation are based, the humanthreat measuring the pressure of the people on the land and resources,the economic pressure relatedto the level of development and material lifestyle of the population, andthree aggregate indicators for the potential for humanimpact on the island, and for the terrestrialconservation importance and marineconservation importance of the island. The details of the basisfor and calculation of all of these indicators are given in the section:Explanationof Island Indicators. The indicators are intended to put thelargely qualitative information about the islands into a form permittingsome comparisons between and rankings of the islands on a country, regionalor world basis.Noteson using the directory- Basic information on each country orterritorial entity is summarized in a country format of some 70 fields. Each country page includes a list of links to each island in that countryor territory. The field list explains the contentsof each field on the country page.- Most of the detailed information in thedirectory is in the island format with 120 fields. All the islands withina country are grouped on the same page, so you can scroll between them. The country names on each island page are linked to the country page. Thefield list explains the contents of each fieldon the island page. The indicatorsare also explained separately.- The indices and tables provide directlinks to the country and island pages.- A special feature of this directory isthe "hot colons". The colon ( : )between each heading and its contents is linked to the description of thatheading in the field list, including explanations of the numerical values.Click on the colon and you have an immediate explanation of the contentof the field. Then use "back" to return to the page.Cautionarynote on data qualityThis directory is a preliminary attemptto synthesize large amounts of information on an island by island basisaround the world. Many entries are incomplete, or possibly even misleadingif essential information, such as the human population or the fact thatthe island is inhabited, have not yet been entered. In addition, the followingspecific problems with data quality have affected the result and shouldbe kept in mind particularly when using the directory to compare islands.a) The quantity of availableinformation is highly variable from one region or island to another. A few islands happen to have been studied in detail, perhaps by some scientificexpedition, while others may never have been visited by a scientist. For many islands, even basic descriptive information is lacking in thesources available. Inevitably the better known islands stand outin such a survey, and this may in part be an artefact of the data available.b) Most islands are still ratherpoorly known scientifically, partly because work on one island cannot beeasily generalized to others. New species are still being discoveredin obvious and well-known categories such as birds and reptiles. Other categories such as some types of insects have hardly been lookedat at all.c) Information on species isoften only available at larger geographic scales such as island groups,countries or biogeographic provinces. This can make it difficultto know what specifically occurs on any given island. The regionaldistribution of many species is known or mapped, but islands are sufficientlyvariable that it is not possible to assume that a species occurs therejust because the island is within the species' known range. Distributionscan be highly irregular or spotty depending on chance dispersal or extinctionand on local conditions.d) The data may be patchy indifferent ways. An island may be well known for birds or land snails,but hardly at all botanically, or vice versa. This can have a particulareffect on levels of endemism, which may vary greatly from one type of organismto another. Hopefully the gaps identified in this directory willencourage others to fill them.e) The cross-checking of datafrom different sources has revealed many errors, to the point that it hassometimes seemed doubtful that the same island was being described. Even figures such as the island surface area or altitude have differedby up to 50%. The type of island or the existence of specific featuresalso sometimes vary between sources. Some errors maybe obviouslytypographical or due to incorrect (or even double) conversion between unitsof measure, and these have been corrected where they were identified. In other instances, it has been impossible to determine which source ofinformation is correct, and one has had to be chosen based on the probablereliability of the source. Unfortunately errors such as these tendto be perpetuated from one compilation or study to another, and some haveprobably be unwittingly carried over into this one where cross-checkingwith authoritative sources was not possible.f) Much of the available informationis seriously out of date. No island stays still in time, and conditionsor features may change from the time when they were described. Manysources fail to give the dates for their data, and old information maybe assumed to be current. Much island information dates from expeditionsearly in this century, or from World War II, and it will need to be confirmedor revised from up-to-date surveys before using it as the basis for importantdecisions or conservation actions. Dates have been added where knownto the types of information in the directory where this may be critical,as with population figures or the status of a species.In spite of all these problems and sourcesof error, it should be possible to have reasonable confidence in the overallcontent of the directory and the results of the review and analysis basedon it. Enough different types of information have been brought togetherto diminish the impact of any single error or data variable.Originand AcknowledgementsThis Island Directory is a product of theIsland Database system of nearly 2,000 islands that was first developedin 1987-89 by Arthur Lyon Dahl under contract to IUCN - The World ConservationUnion with the financial support of the United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP) and the assistance of the IUCN Task Force on Conservation of IslandEcosystems and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre. The database isnow maintained by Arthur Dahl at UNEP-GRID Geneva. It has been redesignedto generate all the pages of this directory directly in html for easy updating.Major contributions of data were made tothe original database by the staff of the World Conservation MonitoringCentre under the supervision of Jerry Harrison, by Timothy H. Johnson ofthe International Council for Bird Preservation (now BirdLife International),and by Christian Depraetere of IRD (formerly ORSTOM). Many otherscontributed in ways too numerous to mention.A preliminary edition of this Island Directorywas published by UNEP in its Regional Seas Directories and Bibliographiesseries, No. 35 (573 pp.), in 1991, but is now out of print.New data, updates and corrections are alwayswelcome, and should be sent to the contact address below, so that revisedand updated versions of the directory entries can be posted from time totime.Arthur Lyon Dahl, Ph.D.Consultant Advisor, UNEPInternational Environment House9 Chemin des AnemonesCH-1219 Châtelaine, GenevaSwitzerlandFax: +41 22 797-3471e-mail: dahla@unep.chREFERENCESDahl, Arthur Lyon. 1991. Island Directory.UNEP Regional Seas Directories and Bibliographies No. 35. UNEP, Nairobi(573 pp.)Dahl, Arthur Lyon. 1986. Review of theProtected Areas System in Oceania. IUCN/UNEP, Cambridge and Gland(239 pp.)©Copyright - United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) 1998All rights reserved. Thison-line production may be reproduced in whole or in part and in any formfor educational purposes or non-profit purposes without special permissionfrom the copyright holder, provided acknowledgement of UNEP as the sourceis made. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) would appreciatereceiving a copy of any publication that uses this on-line publicationas a source. No use of this publication may be made for resale or for anyother commercial purpose whatsoever without prior permission in writingfrom the United Nations Environment Programme. Requests should be directedto: Information and Public Affairs, UNEP, P.O. Box 30552, Nairobi, KenyaThis site is not an officialdocument or publication, and its contents do not necessarily reflect theviews or policies of UNEP. While every effort has been made to ensurethe accuracy and timeliness of the contents, errors and omissions cannotbe avoided entirely in this type of compilation. Users are advisedto confirm with the original sources the completeness and accuracy of anyinformation obtained here.The designations employedon this site and the presentations used do not imply the expression ofany opinion whatsoever on the part of UNEP or the United Nations Systemor Member States concerning the legal status of any country, territory,city or area, or its authority, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiersor boundaries.The sovereignty of a considerablenumber of islands is subject to disputes between Governments. Suchdisputes are noted in the entries whenever possible. The informationon administrative and legal arrangements reflects the de facto situationwhere it is known.Return to IslandsHome PageLast Updated 14 September2004| --BEGIN VALIDATION CODE-- W pAfGzDwRiIjKcZu HuWpFcWhCs RbGdI hFbApQcGwP bC jCh IvJkPxDoMpS sLiU hDhFmOoYcD bQ aAy T jXsB hHgKzBwOjHjZbCvWtU hS mFpOjPcS gR nMsB dReXcEbUfY iTdF cMqPmRcZpGoY aSpP kYtGkBeP dZtSbWeApLhY oDcJ yKbFbJkK fZtU uBbJyLhIgI gE uNwB zCfH pNxTgLnL bFzGpFzA lEkDuN hSyZdZsT hohositeX2006 --END VALIDATION CODE-- |
