Gilbert Islands Research Articles

Advancing Towards Energy Self-Sufficiency in Guam and Micronesia through the Development of Workers for the Blue Economy

Seawater and the oceans are the most abundant sources of water on Earth and represent a major reservoir for the production of electrolytic molecular hydrogen (H2), which is the critical clean energy carrier necessary for achieving sustainable social development. However, the high salt content and presence of organic matter in seawater interfere via the water (H2O) electrolysis reaction (2H2O →O2 + 2H2); thus, complicates the direct utilization of seawater. This challenge is particularly relevant for islands in Micronesia, where their remote locations and accessibility to seawater make the delocalized production of H2 and other possible energy carriers a promising strategy for energy independence and regional self-sufficiency.Driving this strategy, the University of Guam (UOG) has partnered with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to upskill UOG faculty and students on the use of electrochemical equipment through activities aimed at building the foundation for fundamental research in carbon neutral H2 generation. The activities focus on developing an understanding of the reaction complexity of the electrode/liquid interface with the goal of controlling reaction pathways for the electrochemical production of H2 via the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER: 4H+ + 4e- →2 H2) at the cathode and molecular oxygen (O2) via the oxygen evolution reaction (OER: 2H2O →O2 + 4H+ + 4e-) at the anode during the electrolysis of seawater. A fundamental understanding of the reaction mechanisms, kinetics, and influence of the complex environments and the simultaneous transformations that are occurring during the HER and OER is necessary in the realization of technologies that efficiently perform direct seawater electrolysis, while avoiding the pretreatments required for current electrolyzer technologies.This collaboration represents an important partnership between the island of Guam and broader Micronesia and PNNL to train future workers for the Blue Economy. In addition to training future workers for the Blue Economy, the partnership is laying the foundation for UOG to become a major clean energy research center in Micronesia, providing the facilities and expertise to engage researchers in the region. The Micronesian region in the Western Pacific Ocean is a vast and culturally diverse region that includes four main archipelagos comprising of over six hundred islands encompassing 6.7 million square kilometers. The four main island groups in Micronesia include the Caroline Islands, Gilbert Islands, Mariana Islands, and the Marshall Islands. The University of Guam is the only four-year post-secondary educational institution located in Micronesia and establishing itself as the flagship research and partnership institution for all of Micronesia.

Finding the Gaps: Littoral Obstacles during Operation Galvanic

The scale of U.S. casualties during Operation Galvanic has made the operation controversial, yet losses would likely have been far worse if not for the U.S. Fifth Amphibious Force’s successful efforts to mitigate littoral obstacles. The seizure of the Gilbert Islands demonstrated that by exploiting effective intelligence to take calculated risks, even the most complex and well-developed littoral defenses could be defeated. Unable to select a different objective or to secure additional forces, Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner instead exploited Joint force intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) to find the weakest parts of the Japanese defenses.

Efficient coastal inundation early-warning system for low-lying atolls, dealing with lagoon and ocean side inundation in Tarawa, Kiribati

Tarawa is a low-lying atoll in the Gilbert Island group, capital of the Republic of Kiribati and home of nearly 70.000 inhabitants. With limited land area, rapid population growth and urbanization, strong interannual sea level variability induced by ENSO and sea level rise, Tarawa is highly vulnerable to coastal flooding. In this context, Early Warning Systems are a proven cost-effective climate adaptation measure to strengthen community resilience. In virtually enclosed atolls, the water level experienced at the shore is compounded by tides, sea level anomaly, storm surge and the contribution of waves. While wave setup and runup, are the primary components driving inundation along the ocean-facing shorelines, sea level anomaly, wind setup and wave pumping through the atoll rim contributes more inside lagoons. In this paper we present an efficient process-based approach to forecast flooding events along both, the ocean and lagoon coasts of atoll islands. With the intention of being highly scalable to other island countries, the system has been designed as a lightweight and accurate tool, that provides actionable and user-friendly water level predictions 7 days in advance. Publicly available global forecast products are ingested by a high-resolution wave model and tailor-made metamodels to translate ocean forcings to water levels at the shore. In absence of a comprehensive topography dataset, extreme value distributions of 27-year hourly water levels were evaluated every 500 m along the coast to define and communicate different levels of warnings according to the recurrence interval of the forecasted event. The long-term wave climate, nearshore wave transformation, and water levels produced under this work increase Tarawa's risk knowledge and support informed investments and future development strategies. While this system will significantly enhance ocean services in Kiribati, improving baseline data still remains a critical need for government and communities to support informed decision making to better cope with increased coastal hazards.

Holocene relative sea-level histories of far-field islands in the mid-Pacific

Holocene relative sea-level (RSL) data from far-field islands in the mid-Pacific have been used to validate the ice-melting histories of glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) models. However, a lack of quality control in the reconstruction of RSL hinders the understanding of regional variability that can constrain ice-equivalent sea-level changes. Here, we present a standardised database of Holocene RSL data from five regions in the mid-Pacific (Cook Islands, Tuamotu Islands, Christmas (Kiritimati) Island, Gilbert Islands and Fiji). We categorised the data as high or low quality based on the susceptibility of samples to age and/or elevation errors. Of the 614 data points that were reviewed, 25% were rejected and 100 sea-level index points (SLIPs) were reinterpreted as limiting data. The new database consists of 141 SLIPs and 262 marine and 56 terrestrial limiting data points reconstructed from a variety of sea-level indicators (e.g., coral microatolls, mangrove peat, beachrock, and beach ridges), of which 71% provide high-quality constraints on RSL. The early to mid Holocene RSL evolution in the Cook Islands, Gilbert Islands and Fiji are poorly constrained due to a lack of high-quality SLIPs and limiting data during this period. The Tuamotu Islands provided the only record of early to mid Holocene evolution of RSL, indicating rapid RSL rise from between −22.9 m and −15.2 m at ∼9.0 ka to between −0.2 m and 0.5 m by ∼6.5 ka, at rates as high as 9.8 ± 5.1 mm/a, with a slowdown in the rate of RSL rise sometime between ∼8.2 ka and ∼6 ka. The Christmas (Kiritimati) Island record indicates stable RSL within ∼1.5 m of present-day levels over the past ∼6.6 ka. In the late Holocene, the Cook Islands record suggests a gradual fall in RSL over the past ∼2.9 ka at rates below 0.1 ± 4.3 mm/a. SLIPs at Fiji also indicate a slight fall in RSL at rates of less than 0.5 ± ∼4.4 mm/a at ∼4 ka, following which RSL fell from above 0.9 m at ∼3 ka to between −0.3 m and 0.6 m by ∼2.5– ∼2.1 ka. We highlight the importance of standardisation and quality control to critically evaluate the processes controlling RSL and validate GIA models. Indeed, the new standardised database has implications for the timing of the mid- Holocene highstand, which has been used to support the ICE-4G and ICE-7G_NA models. Due to the poor constraints of data in the mid-Pacific islands, particularly in the early Holocene, there remains no unique solution for a global ice-melting history.

A note on cetaceans off Kiribati and Tuvalu from a research cruise in October 2010

This paper summarises the results of a sighting survey conducted around the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati) and Tuvalu Islands (Tuvalu) in the central Pacific Ocean between 3 and 17 October 2010. This was the first systematic collection of cetacean sighting data in this region. The main objective of the survey was to investigate the occurrence and distribution of cetaceans around Kiribati and Tuvalu. In addition biopsy samples were obtained to investigate the species identity of Bryde’s-whale-like baleen whales through genetic analyses and to assess feeding ecology of cetaceans in the survey area through the examination of fatty acids. The survey was carried out using a sighting survey vessel, which covered a total of 1,012 n.miles (≈1,875km). A total of 24 schools (640 individuals) of cetaceans was sighted: three schools (five individuals) of Bryde’s-whale-like baleen whales, one school (nine individuals) of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus), one school (six individuals) of killer whales (Orcinus orca), one school (14 individuals) of short finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus), one school (two individuals) of false killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens), eight schools (483 individuals) of spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris), and one school (70 individuals) of striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba). Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analyses based on the biopsy samples identified two of the Bryde’s-whale-like whales sighted, as of the putative species Balaenoptera brydei. Compositions of fatty acids of Bryde’s and killer whales are presented. The survey provided new information on the distribution and fatty-acid composition of cetaceans around Kiribati and Tuvalu.

Interactions between local disturbance and climate-driven heat stress on central Pacific coral reefs

We investigated how local and global stressors affect coral reefs in situ by taking advantage of a latitudinal gradient in the central equatorial Pacific driven by El Niño-Southern Oscillation, where the past frequency of heat stress decreases away from the equator. We compared benthic communities at 40 sites across 4 atolls in the Gilbert Islands, namely in Kiribati (Tarawa and Abaiang) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (Majuro and Arno), representing gradients in local chronic human disturbance and past frequency of bleaching-level heat stress. A hierarchical clustering analysis found 3 groupings of benthic communities, corresponding to sites with (1) low human influence and frequency of heat stress, (2) low human influence and high frequency of heat stress, and (3) high human influence, suggesting that the effects of intense, ongoing local disturbance may mask the influence of heat stress on coral reef communities. The frequency of heat stress explained 8.0% of the differences in community compositions across all sites (PERMANOVA), while local anthropogenic stressors explained 16.2%, and the combined effects explained 7.0%. Interactions between stressors were multiplicative and acted synergistically to increase the percent cover of macroalgae and the stress-resistant coral Porites rus. The prevalence of P. rus at locally disturbed sites drives the positive relationship between local stress metrics and live coral cover. At the taxon level, half of the multiplicative interactions were antagonistic, suggesting that actions that reduce local stressors may help some coral taxa respond to climate stress, but possibly at the expense of other taxa.

Botanical remains of the last 1800 years from Tarawa, Republic of Kiribati, reveal ancient aroid (Cyrtosperma merkusii and Colocasia esculenta) pit cultivation and other cultigens

Recent advances in the study of the antiquity and development of ancient Pacific Island agriculture have been made at sites across much of the region by the application of a range of microfossil techniques, namely analysis of pollen, phytoliths, and starch. Unlike in Melanesia and Polynesia, the application of these techniques in Micronesia is limited. Here we report on microfossil analysis of Micronesian archaeological pit deposits from Tarawa atoll, in the Gilbert Islands (western Kiribati), covering the last 1,800 years. Results show local pit cultivation of Cyrtosperma merkusii and Colocasia esculenta. Together with microfossils of other subsistence taxa, namely Cocos nucifera, Morinda citrifolia, and Pandanus tectorius, and 14C dated macrofossil charcoal of Artocarpus altilis, the evidence is consistent with the atoll subsistence tradition of Remote Oceania. Because plants have differential production and preservation of pollen, phytoliths, and starch, the study shows the value of using combined analyses of these microparts.

No Population Structure of Bigeye Tunas (Thunnus obesus) in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean Indicated by Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms

The current management of the bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) fishery in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) is based on a “single-stock” paradigm. We investigated the spatial and temporal distribution of the neutral and potentially adaptive genetic diversity in samples collected from waters near Micronesia, Marshall, Phoenix and Gilbert Islands and French Polynesia using genotyping by sequence and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP). Analysis of 144 individuals and 2,682 SNP did not provide any substantial evidence to challenge the current assumption of panmixia in the WCPO using putatively neutral loci. However, there was a signal of potentially adaptive divergence (FST range 0.11–0.24) of samples collected in 2013 in the exclusive economic zone of the Phoenix Islands, possibly because of exposure to differing selective constraints. The geographic origin of these tuna remains to be determined, as the samples originate from tagging cruises that sample large schools of tuna, and some of those tuna have subsequently showed substantial movement. We highly recommend further studies involving large sample sizes of larvae and young-of-the-year across the region and over multiple years to uncover the underlying processes that are potentially driving adaptive divergence and to infer any biological significance it may have on conservation and management of tropical bigeye tuna fishery stock.

Late Holocene sediment accumulation on emergent reef platforms: Human presence in a dynamic and unstable sedimentary environment in the equatorial western Pacific

A transect of pits across the island of Teiro on the atoll of Abaiang in the Gilbert Islands of the equatorial Pacific exposes a sequence of washover deposits overlying the reef platform. Each washover event appears to have truncated the existing sediment surface and contributed to the initiation and the vertical and lateral build-up of the island.Burnt material towards the base of the washover sequence has yielded an age of c. 1100–1000 cal years. This is suggestive of a recent date for the formation of the island, supporting the thesis that atoll islands are a product of sediment accumulation consequent upon the sea-level fall of the last few millennia. This created some of the last land masses on Earth on which human settlement is possible.The burnt material appears to be the product of human activity and is thus indicative of human arrival on Abaiang by c. 1100 cal BP. As elsewhere in the Gilberts, the earliest evidence for a human presence overlaps or postdates the c. 2000–1900 cal BP age for the start of falling sea-levels. This exposed the atolls to subaerial conditions and provided new land for human occupation.The presence of anthropogenic material towards the base of the washover sequence is indicative of a human presence on the island long before it approached a state of relative stability and during a period of repeated disruption by coastal inundation and sediment accumulation.

Coral reefs in the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati: Resistance, resilience, and recovery after more than a decade of multiple stressors.

Coral reefs are increasingly affected by a combination of acute and chronic disturbances from climate change and local stressors. The coral reefs of the Republic of Kiribati's Gilbert Islands are exposed to frequent heat stress caused by central-Pacific type El Niño events, and may provide a glimpse into the future of coral reefs in other parts of the world, where the frequency of heat stress events will likely increase due to climate change. Reefs in the Gilbert Islands experienced a series of acute disturbances over the past fifteen years, including mass coral bleaching in 2004-2005 and 2009-2010, and an outbreak of the corallivorous sea star Acanthaster cf solaris, or Crown-of-Thorns (CoTs), in 2014. The local chronic pressures including nutrient loading, sedimentation and fishing vary within the island chain, with highest pressures on the reefs in urbanized South Tarawa Atoll. In this study, we examine how recovery from acute disturbances differs across a gradient of human influence in neighboring Tarawa and Abaiang Atolls from 2012 through 2018. Benthic cover and size frequency data suggests that local coral communities have adjusted to the heat stress via shifts in the community composition to more temperature-tolerant taxa and individuals. In densely populated South Tarawa, we document a phase shift to the weedy and less bleaching-sensitive coral Porites rus, which accounted for 81% of all coral cover by 2018. By contrast, in less populated Abaiang, coral communities remained comparatively more diverse (with higher percentages of Pocillopora and the octocoral Heliopora) after the disturbances, but reefs had lower overall hard coral cover (18%) and were dominated by turf algae (41%). The CoTs outbreak caused a decline in the cover and mean size of massive Porites, the only taxa that was a 'winner' of the coral bleaching events in Abaiang. Although there are signs of recovery, the long-term trajectory of the benthic communities in Abaiang is not yet clear. We suggest three scenarios: they may remain in their current state (dominated by turf algae), undergo a phase shift to dominance by the macroalgae Halimeda, or recover to dominance by thermally tolerant hard coral genera. These findings provide a rare glimpse at the future of coral reefs around the world and the ways they may be affected by climate change, which may allow scientists to better predict how other reefs will respond to increasing heat stress events across gradients of local human disturbance.

Multi-decadal planform changes on coral reef islands from atolls and mid-ocean reef platforms of the equatorial Pacific Ocean: Gilbert Islands, Republic of Kiribati

Constructed of poorly lithified carbonate sediments with elevations of <3–5 m above MSL, coral reef islands are considered extremely vulnerable to the effects of anthropogenic climate change, particularly sea-level rise. While some studies have shown islands are dynamic landforms with the ability to physically adjust their shape and position on the reef platform, large geographical gaps still exist in reef island change records. This study presents a multi-decadal analysis of shoreline changes and planform geomorphic adjustments across coral reef islands in the equatorial Pacific from the Gilbert archipelago, Republic of Kiribati. Shoreline positions of 71 islands from 3 atolls and 4 mid-ocean reef platforms were analysed by comparing historical aerial photographs (from 1940s and 1960s) and recent satellite imagery covering a period of local sea-level rise rate of ~2.2 mm/year. Results show ~47% of the shorelines were characterised by statistically significant accretion leading to a net increase of 274.07 ha (2.45%) of planform land area. A comparative examination of changes on platform-islands and atoll-islands revealed platform-islands were relatively more stable (mean rate of 0.01 m/year) with significantly less variability in shoreline change rates, while atoll-islands were characterised by a higher mean rate of accretion (0.09 m/year). Further analysis of change rates across various shoreline exposure categories, demonstrate high dynamism across atoll-island shorelines is a function of distinctive local-scale processes occurring within atoll settings; lagoon-facing shorelines were characterised by the highest rate of accretion (0.14 m/year), spits were found to be highly dynamic and embayment infilling accounted for ~9% of the net increase in land area across the study islands. Results are instructive in defining styles of morphological change across various geomorphic settings to inform projections of future island adjustments, assessments of attribution of island change and formulation of adaptation responses across atoll nations.

Length‐weight relationships of 4 coral‐reef fish species encountered in Gilbert Islands coastal artisanal fisheries

Length-weight relationships of 4 coral-reef fish species regularly encountered in artisanal coastal fisheries across 5 atolls of the Gilbert Islands, Kiribati, were obtained. The data were collected through creel surveys undertaken randomly over a period of 20–100 days each year between 2013 and 2020. The main fishing methods used were gillnetting (minimum legal mesh size of 63.5 mm), handlining and spearfishing. Fish were weighed using a digital scale calibrated to ±1–5 g and measured on a flat one-meter ruler delineated in 5 mm increments. Parameters a and b extracted from the general form of the equation describing the relationship between length and weight (W = aLb), associated 95% Confidence Intervals (CI) and correlation coefficients (r2) are presented here.

Giant palaeotsunami in Kiribati: Converging evidence from geology and oral history

AbstractFor tsunami science within Oceania, the vast Central and Western Pacific (CEWEP) is an anomalous region because of the scarcity of historical tsunami observations and the complete absence of dated palaeotsunami evidence. This paper therefore records the first dated high‐magnitude palaeotsunami event within the CEWEP region. A combination of both geological data and oral history is provided for a palaeotsunami that struck remote Makin island, northernmost of the Gilbert Islands in Kiribati, toward the end of the 16th century. A previously undocumented oral tradition of giant waves is well known to the people of Makin. Narration of this legend by the Wiin te Maneaba, traditional storyteller on Makin, provided important details supporting a tsunami hypothesis. The legend preserves credible information surrounding the giant‐wave origin of Rebua and Tokia, two prominent subaerial megaclasts of blade and block geometry that were transported 80–130 m shorewards from the reef‐edge source and deposited in sideways and inverted orientations. From available hydrodynamic flow transport equations, minimum flow velocities of 7.3–16.3 m s−1 were generated, depending on whether the reefblocks were rotated or lifted onto the reef platform. The youngest U‐Th age‐dates for fossil corals retrieved from the reefblocks give a maximum age for the palaeotsunami of circa AD 1576. Several far‐field Pacific Rim and regional possibilities exist for tsunamigenesis. These include subduction‐zone seismicity and catastrophic volcanic eruption, both of which have been linked to earlier (late 15th century) palaeotsunami events recorded elsewhere in the Pacific Islands. However, the available evidence here suggests that the ~AD 1576 Makin palaeotsunami was more likely to have been locally generated by tsunamigenic offshore submarine slope failure close to Makin's western reef, associated with the giant arcuate bight structure that characterizes the northern rim of Butaritari atoll.

Grappling with the Bomb: Britain’s Pacific H-Bomb Tests, by Nic Maclellan

Some sixty years after Britain conducted a series of thermo-nuclear weapons tests in the British colony of Gilbert and Ellice Islands (today’s Republic of Kiribati), the legacy of these trials, especially their environmental and human health effects, remains a source of controversy. Alluding in its title to the code-name of these nine tests, Operation Grapple, which the British government carried out on Christmas Island and Malden Island in 1957 and 1958, Nic Maclellan’s book offers a fresh look at this important chapter in nuclear history. His study takes an unconventional approach: not only does its author reveal in the introduction his activist motivation behind the project, but he also approaches the topic through a series of historical actors who were, in different capacities, involved in the thermonuclear trials. Alongside members of the local populations affected by, and soldiers or civil servants taking part in, these hydrogen bomb tests, Maclellan tells the story of Operation Grapple through the eyes of the British commander of Operation Grapple (Wilfred Oulten), the (former) British prime ministers Sir Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan and the United States President John F. Kennedy, who arranged for Christmas Island to be used for United States thermonuclear testing in the early 1960s.

Environmental versus operational drivers of drifting FAD beaching in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean

In an effort to increase purse seine fishing efficiency for tropical tunas, over 30,000 drifting Fish Aggregating Devices (dFADs) are deployed every year by fishers in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO). The use of dFADs also impacts ecosystems, in particular through marine pollution and dFAD beaching. This paper presents the first estimate of dFAD beaching events in the WCPO (>1300 in 2016–2017) and their distribution. Lagrangian simulations of virtual dFADs, released subject to contrasting deployment distributions, help us determine the relative importance of operational versus environmental drivers of dFADs drifting to beaching areas. The highest levels of beaching, occurring on Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, are likely a result of the prevailing westward oceanic circulation and subsequent local processes driving dFADs towards land. Similarly, high beaching rates in Tuvalu appear to be due to the general circulation of the WCPO. In contrast, beaching in Kiribati Gilbert Islands appear to be more strongly related to dFAD deployment strategy. These findings indicate that reducing beaching events via changes in deployment locations may be difficult. As such, management approaches combining dFAD deployment limits, the use of biodegradable dFADs, recoveries at-sea close to sensitive areas and/or beached dFAD removal should be considered.

Resilience of Central Pacific reefs subject to frequent heat stress and human disturbance

Frequent occurrences of coral bleaching and associated coral mortality over recent decades have raised concerns about the survival of coral reefs in a warming planet. The El Niño-influenced coral reefs in the central Gilbert Islands of the Republic of Kiribati, which experience years with prolonged heat stress more frequently than 99% of the world’s reefs, may serve as a natural model for coral community response to frequent heat stress. Here we use nine years of survey data (2004–2012) and a suite of remote sensing variables from sites along gradients of climate variability and human disturbance in the region to evaluate the drivers of coral community response to, and recovery from, multiple heat stress events. The results indicate that the extent of bleaching was limited during the 2009–2010 El Niño event, in contrast to a similar 2004–2005 event, and was correlated with incoming light and historical temperature variability, rather than heat stress. Spatial and temporal patterns in benthic cover suggest growing resistance to bleaching-level heat stress among coral communities subject to high inter-annual temperature variability and local disturbance, due to the spread of “weedy” and temperature-tolerant species (e.g., Porites rus) and the cloudy conditions in the region during El Niño events.

REVIEW: British bomb legacy lingers in the islands

Grappling with the H Bomb, by Nic McLellan. Canberra: ANU Press, 2017. 408 pages. ISBN 9781760461379/9781760461386.&#x0D; NIC McLELLAN’s Grappling with the H Bomb, is an adroit and readable treatment of the story of the British nuclear testing programme predominantly in the South Pacific islands. Its chief focus is the series of nine British nuclear tests at Malden and Christmas (Kiritimati) Islands between May 1957 and September 1958. They were then part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (GEIC), which was divided into Kiribati and Tuvalu at independence. Malden and Christmas (Kiritimati) Islands are now part of Kiribati.

Ascidians from the Gilbert and Solomon Islands and Nauru I. Perophoridae, Ascidiidae and Corellidae(Zoological Result of the Expedition to the North Equatorial Current Areas : III. Reef-Associated Fauna in Nauru, the Gilbert Islands of the Kiribati and the Solomon Islands, from July through September, 1984)

Ascidians from the Gilbert and Solomon Islands and Nauru I. Perophoridae, Ascidiidae and Corellidae(Zoological Result of the Expedition to the North Equatorial Current Areas : III. Reef-Associated Fauna in Nauru, the Gilbert Islands of the Kiribati and the Solomon Islands, from July through September, 1984)

Revisiting late Holocene sea-level change from the Gilbert Islands, Kiribati, west-central Pacific Ocean

AbstractNew coral microatoll data allow presenting an updated late Holocene sea-level curve for the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati. Examination of build-up elevation and spatial distribution of microatolls, along with radiocarbon age data from coral samples, suggest an approximately 1 m sea-level high stand, possibly lasting from ~3500 to 1900 cal yr BP. Our sea-level curve, which is similar to the one reported from the Marshall Islands, is a baseline to reconstruct the evolution of reef flats and reef islands. In addition, it provides important contextual data to infer human settlement on islands in the west-central Pacific.

Island Encounters in Focus: Photography and the R.L. Stevenson Family

Island Encounters in Focus: Photography and the R.L. Stevenson Family Carla Manfredi (bio) Lloyd [Osbourne] and [Robert] Louis [Stevenson] planted their camera stand in the centre of the village, and walked about to look for good points of view. While they were away a serious-looking man delivered a lecture upon the apparatus, to the evident edification and wonder of the crowd. During his explanation he mimicked both Louis’s and Lloyd’s walk, showing how Lloyd carried the camera, while Louis walked about looking round him. I sat down on a log to wait, when immediately all the women and girls seated themselves on the ground, making me the centre of a half circle and gazing at me with hard, round eyes. —fanny stevenson, The Cruise of the “Janet Nichol”: Among the South Sea Islands In the encounter that unfolds in my epigraph, Fanny Stevenson implies that photography is not always a unidirectional process; rather, the photographic act is located at the intersection between colonial and Indigenous subjects. Fanny’s remarkable anecdote describes her husband, Robert Louis Stevenson, and her son, Lloyd Osbourne, strolling among their prospective Islander subjects on 9 May 1890 during a photography session on Penrhyn Atoll (Tuvalu) in the central Pacific Island region.1 Unexpectedly, the photographers find that they have become spectacles for those whom they wish to photograph: the Islanders’ parody of foreign curiosity undermines the photographers’ seeming authority.2 The playful Islander appropriates the device for the “edification and wonder” (98) of his friends and makes the apparatus, which is designed to see and record, the object of ridicule; likewise, the photographers’ idiosyncratic gestures are cause for amusement. Fanny, too, fails to escape this scrutiny: as she sits on a nearby log, Islander women surround and gaze at her with “hard and round” (98) eyes—unflinching and camera-like. In the following pages, I take Fanny’s account as my starting point to consider how photography might trouble, rather than simply regulate, colonial hierarchies.3 In particular, I examine a selection of photographs taken during the family’s visits to the Marquesas Islands (French Polynesia) and [End Page 67] the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati).4 By the time the Stevensons arrived in the Marquesas in August 1888, there was abundant evidence of depopulation from smallpox and measles. The population decline was compounded by the dissolution of Indigenous political institutions. In 1842, France took possession of the Marquesas, only to abandon the settlement in 1857, and then re-establish control in 1870. In 1888, Stevenson observed the remains of what had once been fierce Indigenous resistance to French authority. He photographed the struggle for local control between a French-appointed chief and one who had been deposed by the colonial authorities. Less than a year later, when the family visited Butaritari Atoll, they encountered a very different sociopolitical situation. Unlike the Marquesas, the Gilbert Islands, although well-known to whaler and commercial traders, were sovereign until 1892, when they became a British protectorate. On Butaritari, where the Stevensons photographed a local dance competition, Stevenson believed that he was witnessing the last vestiges of a society that, he predicted, would vanish in a decade. My case studies, therefore, consider how Moipu, a dispossessed Marquesan chief, reasserted his political standing by posing for the Stevensons’ camera, and how a group of dancers on Butaritari inadvertently transformed what otherwise could have been a straightforward act of photography into a complex exchange of gazes and subject positions. These photographs frame the stakes of my central argument: that the historical and local specificities of colonial impact on Pacific societies unsettle the presumption that “colonial photography” is a consistent and uniform object of study. In fact, specific photographic acts highlight the daily mundane (but no less fraught) negotiations between the individuals who stood before and behind the lens. My goal is not to rehabilitate the racist ideologies that motivated nineteenth-century colonial photography but rather to shed light on those moments during which Islanders influenced the outcome of the photographic event in which they were involved and thus shaped colonial perceptions. This interest in how Islanders participated in photography aligns with critical understandings of the medium’s potential...