Wild News: Islands
WILD FACTS
There are around 100,000 islands worldwide and 1 in 6 of us live on an island. An island is distinguished by an area of land that is smaller than a continent and surrounded by ocean.
Greenland is the world’s largest island and is not classed as a continent. Australia is 3x larger in size than Greenland but not an island because it is considered to be a continent.
Australia is sometimes referred to as an “island continent,” and is classified the smallest of all the continents.
Indonesia is the largest island archipelago in the world. It consists of 5 major islands and 30 smaller groups. There are total of 17,508 islands of which about 6000 are inhabited. Java is the world’s most populated island with over 130 million people.
The Philippines is the 5th largest island nation in the world, and of the 7,641 islands in the Philippines Archipelago only around 1,000 are inhabited.
Great Britain is the 9th largest island in the world and the 3rd most populated.
Islands take up only 5% of our planets landmass but they are home to an estimated 20% of the world’s bird, reptile, and plant species. 40% of critically endangered animals live on islands.
Islands are often considered biodiversity hotspots due to the variety of species that have evolved to thrive on these remote pieces of land. Why do Islands have so many unique species and a high rate of endemism?
An island, especially a remote one, may be colonised by relatively few species. This allows the members of one species to exploit numerous different lifestyles, or 'niches' – a phenomenon called adaptive radiation. As the individual groups adapt to their different niches, they may evolve into distinct species. Therefore, because of the evolutionary influences of isolation and adaptive radiation, islands tend to have many endemic species.
Due to its geographic isolation, Madagascar is home to more than 8000 endemic species, making it the island nation with the highest number of endemic species.
Many island chains are combinations of different kinds of islands. The Seychelles is made up of both continental granite islands and coral islands. Palau is formed of a combination of oceanic/volcanic islands, coral islands and atolls.
Islands generally fit into 6 different categories:
Continental Islands sit on the continental shelf. Most formed as the Earth’s shifting broke continents apart.
Oceanic Islands, also known as volcanic islands, were formed by eruptions of volcanoes on the ocean floor. When volcanoes erupt, they build up layers of lava that in some cases break the water’s surface. When they appear above the water, an island is formed. While the volcano is still technically beneath the ocean surface, it is called a seamount.
An Atoll is a coral reef that begins by growing in a ring around the sides of an oceanic island. As the volcano slowly sinks into the sea, the reef continues to grow.
Coral Islands are low islands formed in warm waters by corals. They build up hard external skeletons of calcium carbonate, also known as limestone. Some coral reefs may grow up in thick layers from the seafloor, until they break the water’s surface, creating coral islands.
A Desert Island is "an island which has always been uninhabited", whereas a deserted island is "an island which once was inhabited but whose inhabitants deserted it".
Artificial Islands are manmade and created for different purposes. In some cases, water is drained around land masses to create arable land that can be used for development or agriculture. The Nahua people of 14th-century Mexico created their capital, Tenochtitlan, from an artificial island in Lake Texcoco. They expanded an island in the swampy lake and connected it to the mainland through roads. Aqueducts supplied the city’s 200,000 residents with freshwater. Mexico City sits on the remains of Tenochtitlan.
Wild Stories
Natalia & Thomas Baechtold - Our Love of Islands
Positive Impact Interview
In our Positive Impact Interviews, Wild Earth Expeditions (WE) wants to give a voice and a personal face to the individuals affected by the novel coronavirus pandemic. WE wish to shed light on the positive impacts of isolation in their lives - to the environment, communities, and wildlife that they are directly connected to.
In this Positive Impact Interview, we discuss the importance of islands and island conservation with Duane Silverstein, the executive director of Seacology. An international non-governmental organization with the sole focus of preserving islands – their fragile habitats, vanishing species, and historic cultures – throughout the globe.
Duane shares colorful stories from projects in Fiji and Vietnam and the founding of Seacology. Duane answers our questions on the positive impacts of isolation due to COVID-19 and shares how his time in isolation has left him feeling grateful for what he has and how he is looking forward to returning to travel and diving.
Duane Silverstein - Seacology
You can help Seacology in their noble quest to preserve island endemism and ecosystems and combating the impacts of climate change by donating to Seacology.
Seacology often gets asked whether or not Seacology projects combat the global climate crisis. The answer is an emphatic yes. Read more here
Wild Earth Expeditions are working on ways to incorporate contributions to Seacology for our Wild Earth Explorers to off set their carbon foot print when booking an expedition with us.
Explorer Experiences
“Right from the beginning of our contact with your company we had timely and professional responses, so we knew it was going to be a well organised trip. What we didn’t expect was such intimate contact with the villagers and such insight into their customs, traditions and way of life. Thomas, Suzanne and Natalia, you were fantastic at educating us about so many aspects of PNG and its people, providing access to villages through your personal contacts and also giving so much energy to the group. The whole trip was an amazing experience, shared with a wonderful group of travellers and led by knowledgeable, prepared, well connected, calm and enthusiastic guides. As first time Wild Earth Explorers, we loved it and we will be back to experience other journeys in the future.”
Wild Fact Text Sources: Wikipedia, Island Conservation, Seacology, National Geographic, Google
Photo Credits: Thomas & Natalia Baechtold, Doug Sloss (Wild Stories image of Thomas & Natalia), Kevin Davidson (Wild Stories image of Thomas & Natalia w. rebreathers), Seacology (images in interview), Adobe Stock