Western Pacific Islands

Abstract

From the Solomon Islands across to Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga and the Samoas, the Pacific Ocean is flecked with tiny islands, many of which were once clothed in tropical moist forest, including rain forest on the higher islands. The major factors controlling the type of vegetation are topography and altitude and this is discussed further by Schmid (1989). Unfortunately, it is these forests that have been most affected by human activity, and on many smaller islands little or no lowland rain forest remains today. Long isolation has produced remarkable examples of endemism, especially in the birds. Loss of habitat and the introduction of predators by mankind have resulted in a large number of species being threatened with extinction. In the tropical western Pacific moves have been made to conserve remaining forest patches in Western Samoa (land area 2935 sq. km), American Samoa (200 sq. km), Cook Islands (240 sq. km) and Tonga (700 sq. km). However, even on these remote islands there has been widespread logging of rain forest with a substantial effect on, for example, Western Samoa (Anon., 1989; Paine, 1989 a,b,c).KeywordsRain ForestMangrove ForestSolomon IslandTropical Moist ForestMontane Rain ForestThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.