Saving the world's islands
Copyright 2001 Bangkok Post
October 2, 2001 4:42am
Islands are among the richest in biological diversity. For example, the island of Madagascar has 8,000 endemic plant species, twice the number of the entire United States, and the Philippines' 7,100 islands contain more endemic vertebrate species (460) than anywhere else on earth.
But island environments are also the most fragile of ecosystems because of their self-contained nature. Lord Howe Island in the Coral Sea between Australia and New Zealand, for example, is just a speck of an island but in the last 400 years it had seen more bird species extinction than the whole of Africa, Asia and Europe combined.
The main reason for the decimation of native fauna is introduced species, like cats, dogs, snakes and other pets, as well as rats from ships landing on the islands. The animals multiply and eat the endemic species, which were not used to being worried about predators.
Introduced species, however, are not the only threat that island ecosystems face. Rising sea levels due to climate change loom as a major problem in the next few years for many small islands in the Pacific, but the biggest threat of all facing islands throughout the world is man-made: logging and the so-called development, which do not only destroy the ecology on land but also the coral reefs around the islands. Due to coastal development, pollution, climate change and dynamite fishing, coral reefs are degrading fast in almost every country of the world, according to World Atlas of Coral Reefs, which was launched last month by the United Nations Environment Programme.
Many islands have small populations and poor economies, and loggers move in with the promise of building a school or health centre for the islanders in return for their rainforests. This was the case in the remote village of Falealupo in Savai'i island of Western Samoa, which controls some of the biggest tracts of lowland rainforest remaining in all of Polynesia.
In 1988 the Samoan government informed the villagers that a new school building was needed, or teachers would no longer be available to educate the children. With no other source of income, the village elders felt they had no choice but to sell the logging rights to their 12,141-hectare (30,000-acre) community rainforest to a foreign-owned timber company to pay for the new school.
Dr Paul Cox, an American ethnobotanist and biology professor who had been studying the forest ecology of Samoa for some time, heard the approaching bulldozers and rushed to the village elders to ask what was going on. Upon learning of their predicament, he asked the elders if they would put a halt to the logging if he could raise the money needed to build the school.
The village elders were sceptical but Prof Cox managed to convince the high chief, Fuiono Senio, to preserve the forest. Following a lengthy debate, Senio in turn persuaded the village elders to accept the unusual offer of the professor from Utah, then brandishing a machete he ran five kilometres to stop the loggers.
An academic by training and without any fund-raising experience, Prof Cox raised the money within six months and the school was built in exchange for the signing of a covenant that the villagers will preserve the Falealupo rainforest for 50 years. Thus started the professor's new mission in life: preserving the environments and cultures of islands throughout the world through a non-government organisation he set up, the Seacology Foundation.
Among Seacology's first projects was the construction of an aerial rainforest canopy walkway at the Falealupo rainforest preserve which is now generating an average of $1,000 (44,000 baht) a month in ecotourism revenue. The money provides a retirement fund for the village elders of Falealupo, the only truly indigenous-funded retirement scheme in the Pacific.
The aerial rainforest canopy walkway for ecotourism project has been so successful that it has now raised more money than the villagers would have made if they had cut down the forest, Duane Silverstein, executive director of the Seacology Foundation, said. In fact, the villagers are so happy with the project that instead of protecting the rainforest for 50 years, they have promised to preserve it forever.
This is the type of win-win situation, in which the islanders benefit for protecting the local environment, which Seacology is trying to support, said Silverstein, who was in Bangkok recently on his way to Samui Island for a holiday with his family. For 18 years Silverstein was executive director of the San Francisco, California-based Goldman Foundation, one of the world's leading philanthrophic organisations supporting environmental endeavours, and he brought his expertise in running an environmental foundation when he joined Seacology two years ago.
Professor Cox was a recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1997, and he endowed the rainforest with his $75,000 (3.3 million baht) prize money, Silverstein said. Through the years, Seacology has worked closely with indigenous islanders to develop projects that not only preserve environments and cultures but benefit local communities as well.
For example, Silverstein cited Waisomo village in Fiji which Seacology provided with the material to build a much-needed community centre and a patrol boat in return for the establishment of a no-fishing marine reserve in the island's coral reefs.
The islanders get something they need, and the environment also benefits because if you protect the coral reef the fish come back and the reef is replenished, Silverstein said.
In Nadogo village, also in Fiji, Seacology is helping improve the only access road to the village in return for the permanent protection of 810 hectares (2,000 acres) of pristine rainforest.
Nadogo, on the island of Vanu Levu, is so remote we were the first non-Fijians to visit the place, Silverstein related. To reach it we took a four-hour trip by van, then crossed a river with water up to our waist and hiked for three hours on a poorly maintained road which is prone to flooding. If someone is sick it means seven hours of carrying the sick person down to the nearest town.
In all of its projects, Seacology provides only the materials, while the villagers contribute the manpower, to make them feel that what they have built is theirs, and thus protect it and maintain it. But if a typhoon destroys the school, or community centre, we don't walk away; we go back and make them build it over again.
Seacology has no project in Thailand just yet, but in Komodo Island in Indonesia, where dynamite fishing is a big problem, Seacology is funding the construction of artificial reefs made of bamboo in deep waters outside the boundary of the Komodo Island National Park, teaching fishermen the skills needed to fish off the artificial reefs, and refurbishing boats with equipment appropriate for this type of fishing, to enable the local fishing community to earn a living without destroying the coral reefs around the island.
It is also to protect the coral reefs that Seacology has provided mooring buoys and funding for training local rangers at newly established marine reserves in Palau and Papua New Guinea, as well as at a yachting area off the island of Vava'u in Tonga. And in Micronesia, Seacology is providing a much-needed boat in exchange for creating the country's first marine reserve.
In the Galapagos islands in Ecuador, Seacology is funding an environmental awareness programme, including the printing of brochures, cartoons and radio commercials, aimed at educating the fishing community about the advantage of establishing a marine reserve.
It's important to have a project in the Galapagos for two reasons, Silverstein said. "It's where Charles Darwin came up with his theories and it kind of symbolises the importance of islands, and secondly it is the most important environmental area in the entire world.
The islands have no indigenous people, but in the past 20 years there has been an influx of fishermen from Ecuador and beyond, and they are starting to destroy the environment because of overfishing. They collect even sea cucumbers and cut the fins off sharks and then leave them in the water to die a painful death, mostly for the Chinese market.
Galapagos is one of the best places in the world for scuba divers to see sharks, Silverstein said. We just had a trip there to look at our project and in our group divers saw a school of about 300 hammerhead sharks. There are very few places in the world where you see that any more. Divers love the opportunity of diving with sharks; it brings so much more money than finning the sharks for sharkfin soup. Sharks are at the top of the food chain and once they are gone the whole marine ecosystem will start falling apart.
Apart from saving the islands' rainforests and coral reefs, Seacology found it equally important to preserve island cultures which are being eroded by television and the Internet, Silverstein said.
Papua New Guinea alone had 900 different languages, or one-fifth of the world's languages, but they are dying out really quickly, he said. In the Solomon Islands, we found that what we need is a school not only to teach children but to teach the local language which is dying out. So we are proposing that we will build the school if they will agree to protect the rainforests which are acutely threatened by lumber companies from Southeast Asia.
Although the foundation is small with a short history, Silverstein is proud of its successful performance record, especially during the last two years after he joined Seacology. It has projects from Alaska and Iceland to the many islands in the Pacific and all over the world, as islands in cold countries have the same problems as islands in tropical climates.
It is very exciting how a very small organisation can actually do very big things in the conservation of islands, Silverstein said, adding that the foundation only has a staff of three, including himself, and a few field representatives who are working on a voluntary basis. In addition it has a board of directors and a scientific advisory board, who, instead of being paid salaries, are the ones who are requested to contribute a minimum of $10,000 (440,000 baht) a year to the foundation.
But that's probably the reason why Seacology is getting a lot of support from foundations, corporations, and rich Americans and Japanese Americans who contribute very generously.
They know that their money actually goes to the islands, Silverstein said.
An unlikely source of financial support is the company selling Nu Skin beauty products.
Professor Cox, the founder of Seacology, invented cosmetic formulas for facial creams, etc, and Seacology gets a commission for every product sold, Silverstein said. When he invented his products, he thought it would generate $4,000 to $5,000 (176,000 to 220,000 baht) a year, in fact it is earning $170,000 (about 7.5 million baht) a year. It is our biggest donor.
The donations have enabled Seacology to initiate projects and initiatives to save the world, one island village at a time, he said.
- For further information, visit www.seacology.org.