Small islands: awash in a sea of troubles.

Despite their role as a setting for tourist idylls, many small islands are suffering from the same ills that plague continental states - but in more acute forms.

Some 1,600 years ago, when the Polynesians first stepped ashore on Easter Island, they found a version of paradise. Lying more than 3,200 kilometers off the coast of what is now Chile, the island boasted a mild climate, fertile soil, and dense sub-tropical forests supporting their own distinctive assemblage of animals and plants. But a few centuries later, the forests were gone, the animals had disappeared, and so had the people. Today, all that remains on this remote Pacific island is an impoverished and barren grassland. The island's gigantic, brooding stone statues stand in silent testimony to a culture that consumed the island's life - and then consumed itself.

The ghosts of Easter Island may be stepping ashore on many of the world's small island states today. It is true that the tragedy of Easter Island resulted in part from the islanders' isolation. Modern island communities depend on the world at large for many of their needs. But the external forces of trade and tourism are combining with internal pressures, like growing island populations, to brew a modern version of the Easter Island predicament.

The world's islands contain an enormous ecological variety. Volcanic islands like Hawaii (or Easter island) are among the most isolated places on earth. The relatively few plants and animals that arrived there were free to adapt to their surroundings with little competition or interference. The result is often a very high number of endemic species - species that occur nowhere else. On Hawaii, for instance, it is estimated that some 280 plant species found the islands before humans did; distinctively Hawaiian species evolved from some of these, eventually producing a total of 852 species, of which 89 percent are endemic. Even on continental islands - islands that sit on continental shelves - the number of endemics is sometimes very high, if the area has existed as an island for a long enough period. On Madagascar, 85 percent of the plants, 98 percent of the amphibians and 99 percent of the reptiles are endemic. Some islands, like portions of the Galapagos, off the coast of Ecuador, are still in a more or less natural state. But many, like those of the Caribbean islands, have been intensively settled for centuries.

Island cultures vary as greatly as island ecologies. In the south Pacific, Polynesian cultures are thousands of years old, while in the Caribbean, waves of colonization have obliterated the pre-Colombian past, to produce new ways of life that draw upon traditions from Europe, Africa, and the American mainland states. Despite their differences, nearly all of these cultures are facing a common set of growing constraints. On island after island, over-fishing, development, and pollution are taking an ever greater toll.

The problems are generally at their worst in "small island developing states". A useful if imprecise category, that term could apply to about 40 states and territories scattered around the world's oceans. Some of these are clusters of islands, such as the Maldives, a nation of 1,300 islands in the Indian Ocean; others, like Cyprus, are just a single piece of land. Either way, their small size, limited domestic markets, and narrow resource bases have pushed their economies in the direction of external trade. Most island states are extremely export-specialized and import-dependent - for consumer goods, for oil, even for food. Among the 32 or so island states with populations of less than 1 million, for instance, an average of 70 cents is spent on imports for every dollar of gross domestic product (GDP); that ratio is more than three times the average for non-oil producing developing countries in general. Some island states are also heavily dependent on foreign aid. The Pacific nation of Tuvalu, for example, received $7.8 million in aid in 1991, or about 80 percent of its GDP.

But despite the external inputs, it is the island's own resources - its waters, vegetation, soil, air, and wildlife - that will ultimately dictate its capacity to sustain development. In that respect, of course, an island is no different from a continent: the island dilemma is the global dilemma in microcosm. And while many continental limits are only beginning to be perceived, on small islands, the limits have very nearly been reached. That is why small islands present a test for all humanity. As Shridath Ramphal, former Secretary-General of the British Commonwealth Secretariat, recently put it, "Their fate may become a symbol of our failure to preserve this planet as a habitable place for all."

THE FISHERIES: FEEDING ISLAND PEOPLES AND FOREIGN FLEETS

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was adopted in 1982 and went into effect in 1994, recognized national Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) extending up to 200 miles from a nation's coastline (when not limited by EEZs of neighboring countries). For island nations, these EEZs represented vast extensions of their jurisdiction - often many thousands of times their land area. Kiribati, in the equatorial Pacific, for example, has a land surface area of only 726 square kilometers. But its EEZ covers some 3.5 million square kilometers, which is larger than the land area of India. (Huge EEZs are typical of the Pacific and Indian Ocean islands; in the Caribbean, where countries are closer together, EEZs are considerably smaller.) Some of the world's richest tuna fishing grounds fall within the EEZs of the Pacific's small island nations. Because the tuna grounds have enormous commercial potential, the EEZs are often seen as a basic tool for island development - but sadly, this is a tool that is often misused.

Traditionally, island societies fed themselves with their coastal fisheries. Not surprisingly, island states have the highest annual per capita fish consumption rates in the world - exceeding 50 kilograms per year - and these coastal fisheries still produce mainly for local markets. In the Solomon Islands, 83 percent of coastal households fish primarily for local consumption. Some island nations have also begun to export their catch - often with remarkable success. Between 1988 and 1993, for instance, the share of fish products in Micronesia's exports nearly doubled to 86 percent; in the Marshall Islands, it increased five-fold to over 80 percent.

But the real export potential lies farther off shore. The Pacific island region is the source for over half the world's canned tuna, and a good deal of its fresh tuna. But the tuna fishery isn't coastal; it's an open-water industry that requires large boats and expensive equipment. Few island nations have the resources to participate directly, so instead they license these fisheries off to foreign fleets.

More than 20 nations fish the Pacific island waters, but four of them account for nearly all of the catch. Japan takes 27 percent of the catch volume; Korea and Taiwan each take 23 percent; and the United States takes 19 percent. Apart from the U.S. fleet, the fisheries are regulated through bilateral licensing agreements with individual island nations. The United States, however, signed a multi-lateral treaty with 16 island states in 1987; it gives each state a guaranteed annual fee, plus a percentage of the value of the U.S. catch in its waters. This arrangement has yielded a considerably better return for the islands. U.S. access fees come to about 10 percent of the catch value, while the average access fee is worth only 4.4 percent. Among those states that control large tuna grounds - the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Kiribati - the access fees are a major source of revenue. For 1993, the most recent year for which figures are available, the region's total fees came to $56 million, in return for a catch valued at $1.2 billion.

Apart from the access fees, island economies have benefited little from the tuna fisheries. The foreign fleets have not generated much "downstream" economic activity, through processing or support services. Although tuna canneries have been set up in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and American Samoa, most processing is done in the foreign fleets' home ports. And the future of the fisheries is uncertain, since the region's tuna catch has been declining from a peak of about 1 million metric tons in 1991. That trend is typical of the Pacific fisheries in general, according to U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization statistics. In the East central region, the catch shrank by over 30 percent from its peak year of 1981; other regions show declines of from 2 to 10 percent. In order to slow the overfishing, eight Pacific island states agreed in 1992 to restrict the number of foreign fishing boats in their EEZs to 200 - including 55 from the United States, and the rest mainly from Japan, Taiwan, and Korea.

Officially, the island states also regulate the catch for these fleets, but they do not break the quotas down by species, and in any case, enforcement is weak. Placing observers on the foreign boats themselves - a form of surveillance provided for in many fishing agreements - is an expensive procedure, and qualified personnel are in short supply. Officials suspect that significant illegal harvesting occurs. In one incident, two Taiwanese and seven Korean fishing boats were found fishing without a license in Nauru's EEZ.

Driftnetting is another form of abuse. Driftnets, which can extend to 30 kilometers, are released to float in the water column for days on end. By the time they are retrieved - with the aid of radar beacons attached to them - they have usually entangled and drowned hundreds of animals - not just marketable fish, but dolphins, sharks, and virtually anything else that comes into contact with them. A 1992 United Nations moratorium restricts the length of driftnets to about 2.5 kilometers. Widespread use of longer nets appears to have ceased, but some pirate driftnetting still occurs. Last July, for example, the U.S. Coast Guard seized a 150-foot boat near Midway Island - after chasing it halfway across the Pacific from near Japan - for using a net over 10 times the legal length.

THE GROWING BURDEN OF PEOPLE AND WASTE

Some of the "beach hotels" on Barbados have lost most of their beaches. The expanses of white sand that inspired the hotels are disappearing - precisely because so many people are visiting them. Sewage, discharged into the sea, is killing the coral reefs offshore. The coral reefs replenish the white sand, and they also protect the coast from the open sea. But as the reefs die and break up, the heavier surf erodes the coast.

Tourism may be the fastest growing industry in the world, and islands are among the most popular vacation spots. On Malta, for example, tourism represents 25 percent of export income. On Barbados, it accounts for 32 percent of the gross national product. But like the foreign fishing fleets, tourist development comes with strings attached.

Tourism can strain an island's infrastructure - demanding larger airports and seaports, more freshwater, more electricity. But arguably the most serious stress is the most obvious one: hotel developments. Hotels are generally sited on coasts - often the most ecologically productive and vulnerable areas. On the Caribbean island of Antigua, for instance, a third of the island's remaining mangroves were destroyed to make way for a resort development, before local people succeeded in stopping the bulldozers. (The mangrove is a tree that grows in standing saltwater in tropical and warm temperate regions; mangrove stands provide important habitat for fish, birds, and many other terrestrial and aquatic species.) In the Pacific, Fiji is spending $300 million to clear mangroves on the island of Denarau, to build golf courses, hotels, and a marina. Guam, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, the Cook Islands, Saipan, and Vanuatu, too, are building major hotel complexes. Despite the appeal of the tourist dollar, these developments may well be helping to erode the economic basis of island life: the coastal fisheries. In Upolu, in Western Samoa, yields around the degraded reefs near developed coasts average 28 kilograms per hectare per year - compared to an average of 120 kg/ha for the island as a whole.

Tourism is also exacerbating the islands' waste problems. For example, the average cruise liner, with its 1,200 passengers and 700 crew members, generates some 3,000 tons of garbage in the course of a one-week cruise. A recent World Bank report on the eastern Caribbean indicated that an estimated 1,500 tons of solid waste is being discharged into the sea each year by the cruise ships visiting the small islands from St. Kitts and Nevis to Grenada. Over 8 million cruise passengers visited the Caribbean in 1991 and by 2000 the number is expected to rise to 15 million.

But the growing numbers of visitors are only a part of the picture, since many island populations are themselves exploding. Pacific island populations are growing at an average annual rate of nearly 3 percent - quite high by world standards. Island populations in the Caribbean may be reaching important local limits as well. In the Bahamas, for instance, the island of New Providence has exceeded its water supply (partly because over 3 million tourists visit the island every year), so water must be shipped in from elsewhere.

The resulting pressure on the coastal fisheries is, increasingly, more than they can bear. Some inshore species have already disappeared. "Now, more and more people truly just subsist, eating tinned fish, rice and bread and paying for it in hard-earned cash," says Margaret Chung of the East-West Center in Hawaii, who authored a report on the problem. Coastal fisheries elsewhere are suffering the same fate. In the Indian Ocean, for example, Mauritius has depleted its fisheries to the point that it must import fish from the Seychelles. On Jamaica, lobsters, once prevalent along the north coast, are now rare.

Many island infrastructures are as strained as the natural resources. Sewage treatment plants serving the hotels are often unreliable, and on many islands, few of the residents' homes are connected to any sewer system. Sewage and animal waste generally just ends up in the water. Creeping sewage is converting many beaches to "beach rock," a limestone-like product of bacterial growth on carbonate sands. Agricultural runoff is spreading fertilizer and pesticide residues. Groundwater contaminated by nitrates and phosphates is now thought to be a major factor in the decline of some nearshore reefs, which tend to cluster around freshwater "springs" in coastal areas. The reefs off the coast of Mauritius, for instance, are being damaged by pollutants from the island's sugar plantations.

Island industries are producing hazardous waste, as well. In the Caribbean, industries ranging from distilleries and food processors to oil bunkers and power stations are dispersing a range of pollutants, from waste oil to heavy metals. On St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, seepage from an old textile waterproofing plant has contaminated neighborhood wells.

All of these pressures are getting worse. If the mangrove stands, coral reefs, and other important habitats continue to degrade, the islands may find themselves unable to count on either the fisheries or the tourists - even as their own needs continue to increase.

TOXIC COMMERCE AND NUCLEAR TESTS

Island economies are built on ship traffic. In the Caribbean, an average of 178 cargo ships - bulk vessels, container ships, tankers, and so on - pass through the region every month. In total traffic volume, the most important commodity is oil. About 5 million barrels of oil move through the Caribbean every day, much of it from Trinidad and Tobago, the region's only oil-exporting islands. Such high-density maritime traffic within relatively confined routes gives the entire area a special vulnerability to waste discharges - and to oil spills.

Oil spills destroy coral reefs and fisheries, and foul beaches. In 1979, a collision between two tankers off the coast of Tobago produced a spill that killed large numbers of fish and crippled the tourist trade in Tobago, Grenada, St. Vincent, and the Grenadines for two years. Despite their vulnerability, many individual island states lack an effective clean-up capability. And in addition to the spills, a significant quantity of oil and petroleum derivatives is lost in the course of ordinary ship operations, such as draining bilges, washing tanks, and so on. The amount of contamination is extremely difficult to estimate, but there is no doubt of its ecological significance, since marine mammals, birds, finfish, and shellfish have all been found to be suffering from exposure to petroleum.

Hazardous waste, too, makes its way to these islands. Some developed countries export hazardous waste in order to escape the high costs - or high risks - of mainland disposal. For the past six years, for instance, Johnston Island, an unincorporated U.S. territory in the central Pacific, has served as an incineration site for nerve gas and other chemical warfare agents from U.S. stockpiles.

Occasionally, island authorities refuse a waste shipment, permitting a rare glimpse of a largely hidden form of commerce. In 1992, for example, a ship carrying 8,000 tons of petroleum-contaminated soil was turned away by authorities on Guam and the Marshall Islands, after it had become the focus of an anti-dumping campaign by the environmental group Greenpeace. The ship had sailed from Honolulu, Hawaii, where it eventually returned with its cargo still unloaded. Definitive figures on hazardous waste traffic are very difficult to come by, but the Caribbean is thought to be a common destination for shipments of garbage and incinerator ash from the United States.

Nuclear material moves through the Caribbean as well. In 1993, 1.7 tons of reprocessed plutonium traveled through the Panama Canal on its way from France to Japan. This was the first in a series of planned shipments between Japanese nuclear power plants and European reprocessing plants. Some Pacific island states have been asked to serve as dumping grounds for nuclear waste. According to a U.N. report published last year, Kiribati was once offered a full national television service, by a nation unnamed in the report, in return for the fights to dump nuclear waste in its territorial waters. The offer was rejected - and Kiribati still has no television. On the other hand, the government of the Marshall Islands has offered to store nuclear waste on Bikini and Enewetak, two atolls already contaminated by a series of nuclear tests the United States conducted there from 1946 to 1958.

Nuclear testing continues to haunt the region. In September, France resumed its testing program on Mururoa atoll near Tahiti, despite a testing moratorium begun in 1992 and fierce international opposition - including a riot in Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia. Over the past 26 years, France has conducted 44 atmospheric and about 130 underground tests in the region. France's current plans call for a series of eight tests, after which the government proposes to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. (As this article went to press, one test had already been conducted.) Nuclear testing can crack reefs and contaminate land and water with radioactive debris. A large-scale release of underground radiation could decimate the rich waters of the Pacific. The French government denies that any contamination has been released from past testing in Mururoa, but tests by Greenpeace and a French environmental organization, the Cousteau Society, have turned up radioactive isotopes of cesium off the atoll's coast. Most south Pacific states have been trying since the early 1970s to rid the region of nuclear weapons; a South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty was signed in 1985.

THE RISING TIDE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Hurricane Luis was over 1,100 kilometers wide and packing 200 kilometer-per-hour winds when it slammed into the eastern Caribbean last September. St. Kitts and Nevis lost three-quarters of their buildings; Antigua and Barbuda suffered $300 million in damages. U.N. officials said development on Antigua had been set back a decade. Dominica lost 90 percent of its banana crop, an economic mainstay (a week later, Luis' successor, Marilyn, removed the remaining 10 percent). And St. Martin was in utter ruin. According to a local policeman, "the Haitian quarter has just disappeared, the marina doesn't exist anymore, some of the big hotels have been practically leveled, all the boats have capsized...."

Small Islands Developing States and Territories

                             Population    Surface Area      EEZ
                             (thousands)      (km2)       (thousands
                                                             of km2)
STATES

Cuba                            10,907       110,861             (*)
Dominican Republic               7,621        48,734             (*)
Haiti                            6,893        27,750             (*)
Papua New Guinea                 4,149       462,840             (*)
Singapore                        2,798           618             (*)
Jamaica                          2,495        10,990             (*)
Trinidad and Tobago              1,279         5,130              77
Mauritius                        1,109         2,040           1,109
Fiji                               747        18,274           1,135
Cyprus                             723         9,251              99
Comoros                            607         2,235             (*)
Bahrain                            548           678             (*)
Cape Verde                         395         4,033             (*)
Malta                              361           316              66
Solomon Islands                    354        28,896           1,116
Bahamas                            268        13,878             759
Barbados                           260           430             167
Maldives                           234           298             959
Vanuatu                            161        12,189             857
Samoa (Western)                    158         2,831              96
Saint Lucia                        139           622              68
Sao Tome and Principe              127           964             (*)
Federated States of
Micronesia                         114           702             (*)
Saint Vincent and the
Grenadines                         110           388              68
Tonga                               98           747             596
Kiribati                            75           726           3,550
Grenada                             92           344              27
Dominica                            72           751              20
Seychelles                          72           455           1,349
Antigua and Barbuda                 67           440             (*)
Marshall Islands                    51           181             (*)
Saint Kitts and Nevis               42           261              68
Tuvalu                              13            26             857
Nauru                               10            21             431

TERRITORIES

Netherlands Antilles               191           800             (*)
US Virgin Islands                  107           342             (*)
Aruba                               62           193             (*)
Cook Islands                        17           236           1,830
Palau                               16           459             (*)
Niue                                 2           260             390

* Data not available

SOURCE: Adapted from UNESCO, 1994

Islands are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. Many are in earthquake zones, and others are in the path of hurricanes (in the Atlantic) and cyclones (in the Pacific and Indian Oceans). Of the 25 countries hit hardest by natural disasters between 1970 and 1989, 13 were small island states. Islands are often too small either to deflect major storms or to modify their circulation, and the result is a continual toll of devastation. The Bahamas is still recovering from the extensive damage to sea walls and coastal developments caused by storm surges in 1991. Hurricanes Gilbert in 1988 and Hugo in 1989 pounded several Caribbean countries, destroying housing and infrastructure, and crippling agricultural production. In Jamaica alone, Gilbert damaged 41 percent of all dwellings in the capital city of Kingston, and inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars in total damages. In bad years, some island states spend as much as 30 percent of their national budgets on disaster relief.

Exacerbated by global warming, weather disturbances could become catastrophic. As atmospheric levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases continue to rise, average global temperatures are expected to climb as well. Rising temperatures will mean rising sea levels, since warming water expands and some water currently locked up in ice will melt. During the last 100 years, sea levels have already risen some 10 to 15 centimeters. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international group of scientists that officially monitors the issue, predicts a further rise in the range of 25 to 79 centimeters by the year 2100.

While this is an issue of worldwide concern, small island states have special reasons for worrying. About half a million people live on archipelagos and coral atolls that rise no higher than 3 meters above sea-level. Kiribati's 33 islands, for instance, are all vulnerable to the changes predicted by the IPCC. As the former president of Kiribati, Ieremia Tabai, observers, "If the greenhouse effect raises sea levels by one meter it will virtually do away with Kiribati.... In 50 or 60 years, my country will not be here." In addition to Kiribati, four other island groups - the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Tokelau, and Tuvalu - were identified at the 1995 Asia-Pacific Conference on Climate Change as threatened with extinction by the rising seas.

Those islands that do not disappear may still have to cope with more frequent and stronger tropical storms - another likely effect of global warming. More extensive coastal flooding is likely to injure ecologically valuable shoreline vegetation. Rapid warming would also disrupt temperature-sensitive ecosystems such as coral reefs. Saltwater intrusion from the rising seas may affect groundwater, reducing the productivity of farmland and cutting into freshwater supplies. And as the islands degrade physically they arc likely to degrade culturally as well. "What is endangered," as Shridath Ramphal notes, "is not merely many hundreds of beautiful small islands, but the survival of entire nations, with their distinctive languages and cultures."

Climate change is also likely to reduce island bio-diversity. Loss of habitat to flooding, loss of freshwater, and the spread of aggressive alien species better able to cope with highly disturbed habitats - these and other pressures could push many island species over the brink of extinction. Because islands contain such a high proportion of endemic species, there are often no "back-up" populations to replenish island biotas. And island ecosystems are already fragile: three-quarters of all recorded extinctions have occurred on small islands. On Mauritius, for instance, half the endemic animals have vanished and nearly two-thirds of the endemic plants are endangered or extinct - victims, for the most part, of habitat loss and alien species.

BREAKING THE MOLD OF INSULAR POLITICS

An island-hopping cruise from Puerto Rico to Guadeloupe would cover only about 240 kilometers along the arc of islands that defines the eastern edge of the Caribbean. Yet the visitor would pass through a bewildering array of jurisdictions: a U.S. commonwealth (Puerto Rico), a U.S. unincorporated territory (the U.S. Virgin Islands), two British colonies (Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands), a commune of the Department of Guadeloupe - part of Greater France (St. Martin), three remnants of the Dutch monarchy (St. Maarten, Saba, St. Eustatius), another French commune (St. Barthelemy), the independent country of Antigua and Barbuda, the independent country of St. Kitts-Nevis, a British colony (Montserrat), and the department of Guadeloupe itself - part of France. Such a welter of jurisdictions has tended to paralyze regional policies. According to Bruce Potter, Vice President of the Island Resources Foundation, a research organization that focuses on small island resource issues, no international agency could legally deal directly with authorities on every island in that 240-kilometer arc.

Yet because of their small size and modest weight in world affairs, islands need to address their common problems collectively. Some regional institutions have been established, which may eventually allow Pacific and Caribbean states to pool their resources for their common good. For instance, the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme and the U.N. Environment Programme's Caribbean Environment Programme arc intended to help island states with environmental research and planning.

In the Pacific, the 16-member Forum Fisheries Agency has been responsible for establishing and coordinating fisheries policies, particularly as they pertain to the foreign fleets. The FFA helped negotiate the multi-lateral fishing agreement with the United States, and is seeking similar agreements with the other major fishing nations - so far without success. It is also working on plans to improve enforcement. Apart from such obvious possibilities as more aerial surveillance and more surface patrols, a key component is likely to be the installation of a type of radio beacon, called a vessel monitoring system, aboard fishing boats. The agency is currently designing the system, which it plans eventually to require on all vessels fishing within FFA waters.

Perhaps the most successful international effort the island states have mounted is AOSIS, the Alliance of Small Island States. This 41-member organization (which includes five small continental states) was set up in 1990, at the Second World Climate Conference. In Berlin last April, at the Fourth World Climate Conference, AOSIS took center stage by pushing for a measure that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by at least 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2005. Many developing and European countries signed on to the proposal, which was instrumental in forcing a broad recognition that the time had come for substantial cuts in carbon emissions (see Christopher Flavin, "Climate Policy: Showdown in Berlin," September/October 1995). The AOSIS strategy may have begun to make the islands less insular - and a serious political force.

On a national level, there are some encouraging initiatives as well. Some island states have begun to diversify their economies, to build their export-oriented service sector beyond tourism. The Cayman Islands has developed a thriving offshore banking industry and Mauritius is in the process of developing one. Jamaica has become an important data processing center, and St. Lucia hopes to become a key transshipment point for trade within the Americas.

Many islands have launched major environmental initiatives as well. Barbados has borrowed more than $50 million from the Inter-American Development Bank for a sewage treatment project and to rehabilitate damaged reefs. Bonaire and Grand Cayman have set up marine parks and passed legislation banning ocean dumping and the collecting of coral, fish, or other aquatic organisms in protected areas. Other states are trying to protect fragile habitat by restricting tourist traffic. Vanuatu, for instance, limits visitors to four of its 80 islands. The Maldives places all but a few of its islands off-limits to tourists. The Seychelles has built more environmentally benign tourist facilities, intended to accommodate local habitat instead of replacing it. And some cruise lines have adopted a "zero discharge" policy within the waters of certain islands - the Cayman Islands, for instance.

Several island states have also launched alternative energy programs. In French Polynesia, photovoltaic systems are widely used for residential power and water pumps. Experimental tests of wave energy potential have been conducted on American Samoa and Tonga. Hydropower, wind, and geothermal potential exists to some degree on many islands. Developing these resources could reduce island dependence on expensive imported fossil fuels, decrease the risk of oil spills and other forms of oceanic pollution, and help grow the technologies needed to slow climate change.

None of the environmental problems that plague island states are unique to them. Overfishing, pollution, and climate change arc global concerns. But because of islands' special vulnerabilities, these pressures are more intense there than they are in most other places. An island is therefore a sort of "miner's canary" - the bird that miners used to take with them into the shaft. A sick canary meant bad air; sick islands may also be warning the rest of the world of things to come. Last year in Barbados, at the U.N. Global Conference on Small Island Developing States, Kinza Cloudmar, special advisor to Nauru's president, recognized the special role that may be reserved for island states. "We represent," he said, "a small capsule in which all the world's problems arc magnified many times." Nauru's fate is shared, to a greater or lesser extent, with the planet as a whole.

Anjali Acharya is a staff researcher at the Worldwatch Institute.