Preserving Paradise: Conservation Challenges in Remote Ecosystems
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It was August 1941, four months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. In search of a strategic Pacific Ocean base, American sailors landed on the shores of Palmyra Atoll, a flyspeck on the map about 1,000 miles southwest of Hawali. They found a paradise of Technicolor corals, crystalline lagoons and lush native forests. Isolated wildernesses such as Palmyra, which is now a National Wildlife Refuge, provide precious natural laboratories and hold a powerful allure in the popular consciousness. However, few scientists or policymakers have considered how to tailor conservation approaches to the unique challenges of these places which, until recently, were protected by their own remoteness.
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A paper called “Conservation at the edges of the world” in the issue of Biological Conservation, examines different conservation methods for remote areas. Palmyra is one of the “model remote sites” described in depth in the article. The researchers assert that globalization is rapidly eroding isolation, and now is the time to protect scientifically valuable far-flung ecosystems. They suggest that some of the logistical cultural and economic challenges of conserving remote places can be turned into opportunities for biodiversity management. Palmyra is one of the Northern Line Island, atolls once only accessible by rare ship traffic. Now, passenger airlines and cruise ships make regular stops in the area. Commercial fishing boats ply the waters of even the most isolated atolls and sea-tossed trash, litters shorelines.
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Still, the atoll remains a natural wonderland. It has one of the world’s most intact coral reef ecosystems, “Preserving the last remaining undisturbed ecosystems is the only way to avoid posing intact biodiversity reservoirs”, said study co-author Firoenza Micheli, a biology professor affiliated with the Standford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Hopkins Marine Stations. Like preventive medicine. Micheli said “it is a relatively small investment we can make to prepare for the highly uncertain future ahead of us”. “Beyond their instructive worth to scientists, many of us can and should take satisfaction in simply knowing that there still remain spots of our planet out there where life advances. For the moment, in ways that it has for millennia”, Mc Cauley said. ‘As remoteness degrades across our planet, the value and importance of these sites to science and society will only increase”.
