Explore the Central Pacific
The Pacific Ocean makes up approximately one-third of the Earth's surface. This vast expanse of ocean is home to nearly 25,000 islands. Among these islands stretching 2,350 km in a northwest-southeast direction approximately 1,000 miles south of the Hawaiian Islands are a chain of eleven atolls called the Line Islands. The geological history of the Line Islands is complex. It is thought that the islands formed as volcanoes over a series of hot-spots. Today only 11 of these islands are visible, at best, a few meters above sea level. The remote nature of these islands, coupled with the biodiversity found here make them ideal areas to study coral reefs.
Marine National Monument
The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is a group of unorganized, mostly unincorporated United States Pacific Island territories in the Central Pacific, managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Interior. Proclaimed a national monument on January 6, 2009 by U.S. President George W. Bush, the monument covers 86,888 square miles (55,428,480 acres), spanning areas to the far south and west of Hawaii, including Kingman Reef, Palmyra Atoll, Howland Island, Baker Island, Jarvis Islands, Johnston Atoll, and Wake Island.
Within the national monument, resource destruction or extraction, waste dumping, and commercial fishing will be prohibited, but research, free passage, and recreation will be allowed. Additionally, NOAA manages three marine sanctuaries in the Pacific Islands Region including the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, and the Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The sanctuaries provide protection for a multitude of marine species including sea turtles, dolphins, whales, pearl oysters, giant clams, coconut crabs, large groupers, sharks, humphead wrasses, and bumphead parrotfishes. Expansive shallow coral reefs and deep coral forests – with some corals up to 5,000 years old – are found here. These small dots of land in the midst of the ocean are vital nesting habitat for millions of seabirds and resting habitat for migratory shorebirds. Protecting and studying these special ocean areas provides an opportunity to secure the future of our marine resources and to better understand the functioning of our oceans. Ecological knowledge is key to reef management and restoration, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the status of reefs are essential components of these efforts. The system of marine sanctuaries and national marine monuments hopes to help manage and preserve these valuable coral reed ecosystems for generations to come. Read National Geographic's article announcing marine reserve
A Unique Natural Experiment
The Line Islands are one of the longest island chains in the world and are geographically divided into two subgroups; the Northern and Southern Line Islands. The northern part of the Line Island chain, where the 2010 expedition is occurring, is comprised of more remote and less inhabited land formations- making it the perfect area for exploration and scientific discovery. The ecological research taking place in the Line Islands provides valuable insights into the workings of coral reefs and how these can be disrupted. These marine national monuments not only represent the last refugia for fish and wildlife species rapidly vanishing from the remainder of the planet, but also serve as a natural experimental system that spans a gradient of human disturbance.
Locations and populations for the Line Islands from North to South:
Kingman Reef population 0 6°24′N 162°24′W | Palmyra Atoll population 4 5°52′N 162°6′W | Teraina population 1,155 4°43′N 160°24′W | Tabuaeran population 2,539 3°52′N 159°22′W | Kiritimati population 5,115 1°53′N 157°24′W | Caroline Island population 0 9°57′S 150°13′W | Vostok Island population 0 10°06′S 152°25′W | Flint Island population 0 11°26′S 151°48′W | Jarvis Island population 0 0°22′S 160°03′W | Malden Island population 0 4°01′S 154°59′W | Filippo Reef population 0 5°30′S 151°50′W | Starbuck Island population 0 5°37′S 155°56′W
History
The Republic of Kiribati was founded in 1979. Made up of 33 atolls and one island the Republic of Kiritimati is scattered over nearly two million square miles in an ocean region largely thought of as the South Pacific. Within this vast area lie the Line Islands, a group of mostly atolls, approximately 1,000 miles south of the Hawaiian Islands. The Line Islands are remote and far from bustling cities and active airports. Their distance from civilization created a history is full of explorers, pirates, and fortune hunters. Their location also makes them the perfect place to study and conserve the practically untouched coral reefs that dominate the underwater landscape.
Kiritimati
Kiritimati, also known as Christmas Island is the largest of the Line Islands at 222 square miles and has a population of about 10,000. Its chief agricultural product is copra, dried coconut meat yielding coconut oil. The atoll was explored by Capt. James Cook in 1777, annexed by Great Britain in 1888, and included in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony in 1919. British nuclear tests were conducted on the atoll in 1957 and 1958 and U.S. tests in 1962. Because of its size and area, it is believed to be the oldest atoll in the world. There are four villages on the atoll: London, Tabwakea, Banana (Banana Wells), and Poland. Many of the place names are from Father Emmanuel Rougier, a former French priest who leased the island from 1917 to 1939 and planted some 800,000 coconut trees. La colline de Joe (Joe's Hill) is the highest point on the atoll, less than 40 feet (12 meters). If a traveler were to leave Christmas Island and sail directly west nearly 1,000 miles, they would land on Howland Island, where history's most famous female aviator, Amelia Earhart, mysteriously disappeared in 1937. In between Howland and Christmas islands is expansive open ocean, perfect for conducting ocean science research, but nowhere to land a plane.
Tabuaeran and Teraina Islands
Much closer to Kiritimati at a distance of only about 153 miles is Tabuaeran, also called Fanning Island, with a population of about 1,900. Visited by the American explorer Edmund Fanning in 1798, it was renamed Tabuaeran when it gained independence as part of Kiribati in 1979. Copra is the island's only export. Residents of overcrowded islands in Kiribati have been resettled on Tabuaeran. Reef fishes and shellfishes, babai, coconut, pigs, chickens, and seaweed (limu) grown in lagoons are local foods, supplementing a main diet of imported rice and tinned meats. The maximum elevation is about 10 feet (three meters) above high tide.
Another island visited by Edmund Fanning (June, 12, 1798) is Teraina, a three-square mile island with a population of about 900. Fanning named the island Washington Island after George Washington. Also called Prospect Island, the name was changed to Teraina after Kiribati gained independence in 1979.
Palmyra Atoll
The same year Fanning "discoverd" Teraina he visited Palmyra Atoll after dreaming of finding an island the night before but never landed. Four years later an American ship, Palmyra, was blown ashore during a storm giving the atoll its name. In 1898 Palmyra was annexed to the USA as part of the Territory of Hawaii but was later excluded from becoming the 50th Sate along with the Hawaiian islands. This makes Palmyra the only privately owned territory in the United States. The Palmyra region is currently administered by the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service and the land is owned by The Nature Conservancy. Truly uninhabited, there is a crew of about 10 residents who maintain the island for ocean science research.
Kingman Reef
36 nautical miles northwest of Palmyra is the uninhabited Kingman Reef, a mostly submerged reef of less than one square mile. The U.S. annexed the reef in 1922. Its sheltered lagoon served as a way station for flying boats on Hawaii-to- American Samoa flights during the late 1930s. There are no terrestrial plants on the reef, which is frequently awash, but it does support abundant and diverse marine fauna and flora. In 2001, the waters surrounding the reef out to 12 nautical miles were designated a U.S. National Wildlife Refuge.
Jarvis Island
Located 25 miles south of the equator is Jarvis Island; a 4.5 square kilometer (1.75 sq. mile) small coral island. The island's first known sighting by Europeans was on 21 August 1821 by the British ship Eliza Francis owned by the Jarvis family and commanded by Captain Brown. In March 1857 the uninhabited island was claimed for the United States under the Guano Islands Act and formally annexed on 27 February 1858. For the following twenty-one years, Jarvis was commercially mined for guano, sent to the United States as fertilizer. The United Kingdom annexed the island on 3 June 1889 and the United States reclaimed it in March of 1935, under the Baker, Howland, and Jarvis Colonization Scheme. Since 27 June 1974, Jarvis Island has been administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the Jarvis Island National Wildlife Refuge.
Content borrowed from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Line Islands Expedition 2009 , Wikipedia, and The Nature Conservancy.
