Islands - Cane Toad Warrior

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Lord Howe Island

Situated about halfway between Norfolk Island and N.S.W., Lord Howe Island is a unique sub-tropical island.

The island was discovered shortly after the settlement of Australia by Lord Howe, who was en route to Norfolk Island from Botany Bay. Prior to 1788 it had never been inhabited and may never have been seen by human eyes. As a result, it features a high number of endemic species for such a tiny island, including half of it's plant-life, and a species of mushroom that glows.

A permanent settlement wasn't established until 1834, but goats and pigs had been left on the island prior to this to establish local livestock, leading to the eventual extinction of several species.

An airstrip was built on the island in the 70s, and tourism and plant exports are it's main sources of trade. In 1982 the island was granted a world heritage listing.

Capitol: The island is far too small to have a capital or proper township.
Language(s): English
Area: 14.6 square kms
Currency: Australian dollar.
Population: 350 permanent residents. Up to 400 tourists allowed on the island at any one time.
Government: Dependency of the Australian state of New South Wales. There is an administrator on the island.
Settlements: Most of the residents houses are situated around Stevens Reserve at the northern end of the island.

Culture/Customs: Until 1953, most of the local residents didn't even own the land they lived on, despite having been on the island for several generations. The first settlers were early businessmen looking to supply passing whaling ships with food, they were followed by the usual retired sailors. Today the island is mostly known for tourism and it's many unique plants.

Lord Howe Island Woodhen

Wildlife: Around 30 different species of birds live and breed on the island. There are also geckos and skinks, as well as a forest bat also found on the mainland. The Red-Fronted Parakeet, now only found on New Zealand, was once native to the island before it's eradication at the hands of the settlers.
Wildlife (introduced): There are domestic cattle on the island, as well as feral sheep, pigs, rats and mice. Feral goats were recently cleared from the islands, and efforts are being made to control and eradicate the pigs. Masked Owls were also introduced to the island to help control the mice population, unfortunately the Masked Owl may account for the disappearances of at least two native species on the island.
Wildlife (endemic): One of the last surviving unique species on Lord Howe Island is the Lord Howe Island Woodhen, a flightless bird of which there are 200 left. The Lord Howe Island Stick Insect was thought to have died out in the 1930s, but a small population was recently found on a single bush. The Lord Howe Island Swamphen, a larger purple-ish coloured bird similar to the Woodhen, died out shortly after human settlement. Other unique species known to have disappeared from the island include the Lord Howe Island Boobook Owl and the White-Throated Pigeon. Remains of a endemic native bat species have also been found, presumed extinct.

Lord Howe Island Stick Insect

Images from Wikipedia.org

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Posted By: Luke - Category: Islands

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Ascension Island

January 25th 2007 06:17

I've never really complete understood why, but I have an intense and obsessive fascination with remote islands. It led me to read this book, and from there I've followed all sorts of lines of curiosity. The biggest tragedy is that I'll probably never have the means or chance to visit these places. But we can dream, can't we?

The first island I would like to summarise here is Ascension Island.

ASCENSION ISLAND

Ascension Island is one of the British Empire's last colonies. It's closest neighbour is the British colony island of St. Helena, about 800 kms away. Ascension Island has no permenant population, due to their being nothing worth staying for on the island. It's main worth in the past has been as a strategic point in the Atlantic Ocean (last utilised in WW2 as a refuelling point for the Americans). As such it has transient populations from both England and America, mostly military or research-based. Supplemental occupations that exist to service the temporary population are mostly filled by St. Helenians.

Ascension Island was first discovered by the Portuguese in the early 16th century. It was used mostly as a rendezvous point by ships for the following three centuries. In 1815 the British claimed it (along with Tristan de Cunha, far to the south in the Atlantic Ocean) to ensure that they controlled the waters around St. Helena, where they had exiled Napoleon Bonaparte.

Capitol: Georgetown
Language(s): English
Area: 91 square kms
Currency: Acceptable currencies are British pound, American dollar and St. Helena pound.
Population: Anywhere between 1000 and 3000.
Government: Ascension Island is looked after by an Administrator, who is appointed by the Governor of St. Helena. Ascension Island is considered to be a dependency of St. Helena.
Accessibility: Provided you have permission from the Administrator (which isn't entirely hard to get), you can fly from Oxford, England, to Ascension Island on a military plane for the sum of roughly 1000 pounds. Otherwise, there is a ship that travels from Cardiff to Cape Horn four times a year that stops at Ascension Island and St. Helena on it's voyage. I'm not sure how easy it is to get a berth on this ship.
Settlements: The biggest settlement is Georgetown, which has over 500 residents. The U.S. Bases, Cat Hill and Traveller's Hill, have about 350 residents between them. A further 120 people live at Two Boats Village in the island's middle.
Culture/Customs: Ascension Island is fairly British, and owing to the fact that very few people spend more than a few years there at the most, it isn't really a proper country or anything.

There are two pubs, a local newspaper, and various casually-operated shops.

There is also a golf course on the island that is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the 'worse golf course on the whole planet'.

Male visitors and residents are expected to take part in a race from the shore to the island's only source of fresh water once a year.

Owing to the island's remoteness, it is said that a visitor can ensure they will never have to come back (most Ascension Island visitors are there for employment - St. Helena is a very poor country) if they paint a rock white on the side of the island's road. There are two conditions though, the painting must be done at night, and no one must see you do it. If someone sees you do it you are cursed to come back again.

Wildlife: Ascension Island is probably most famous for the thousands of Green Turtles that emigrate there year after year to lay their eggs. It is also home to various seabirds, including Wideawake Birds, Terns, Tropicsbirds and Noddies.
Wildlife (introduced): Ascension Island has been home to a feral donkey population for roughly 100 years now. There are also feral goats. Recent attempts have been made to cleanse the island of rats and feral cats.
Wildlife (endemic*): The tiny nearby island of Boatswain Bird Island (heavily protected due to it's natural heritage) is home to the Ascension Frigatebird. The Ascension Island Rail, a small flightless bird, became extinct in the early-to-mid 19th century due to the introduction of cats.

*Endemic - means a native-species that is found nowhere else in the world.

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Posted By: Luke - Category: Islands

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Sealand to become a haven for Pirates?

January 22nd 2007 04:48

As you may or may not recall (let's face it, you probably don't), I wrote an article of Sealand a while back.

You can find it here - Sealand.

Anyway, to sum it up briefly, Sealand is a self-declared independent nation based on an abandoned world-war 2 outpost off the coast of England. It's very tiny and has seen it's fair share of drama in the form of courtcases and attempted coups. Anyway, the principle and original owner, Prince Roy, is getting on a bit these days and the place is up for sale.

Technically, you can't buy Sealand outright, as it's a principality and principalities can't be bought (yet they can be declared on any old pair of rusty silos, go figure!) A Spanish real estate company called ImmoNaranja is offering tenancy for the micronation, aiming for a price between 65 million and 504 million pounds (that's roughly 150 million and 1.3 billion dollars Australian). Permanant custody of Sealand is included as a condition of sale, so you'd pretty much own the place anyway, as much an anyone can 'own' a country.

Now, that might seem a bit excessive for a piece of real estate that pretty much consists of some wind turbines and a helicopter pad, but the business opportunities are beyond lucrative. As Sealand is not tied to any mother country it is able to do whatever it likes, more or less. Sealand has been attacked and invaded in the past due to financial greed, and citizenship of Sealand (along with Sealand passports) has become a valuable international commodity amongst dodgy businessmen.

One group attempting to buy Sealand is the organisation that runs The Pirate Bay website, a Scandanavian site that deals primarily with torrents technology and the distribution of pirated materials. With the help of their many patrons, they hope to raise enough money to purchase the principality. This would mean they could host their website there and be exempt from native piracy laws elsewhere in the world. They could also host other websites of a dodgy nature there, and they would make quite the fast buck I imagine.

I doubt they will raise enough money to get that far though. 500 million pounds is a hell of a lot.

But the question that comes to my mind is - would the rest of the world stand by and let it happen? With an organisation like the Pirate Bay running Sealand it could mean that all sorts of otherwise illegal websites would become internationally legitimate. Would the Pirate Bay have a charter? Would they have a code of ethics that would rule out websites dealing with pedophilic or terrorist materials? It could be quite the proverbial can of worms.

Either way, it will be interesting to see whose hands Sealand falls into, and what they plan to use it for. If one thing is for sure, it's that the new would-be owners of Sealand will be doing something big with their new property - no one spends that much just to be eccentric.

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Posted By: Luke - Category: Islands

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Sealand, the Greatest Country in the World

September 11th 2006 12:26

You may not be aware of it, but your Atlases and world maps are wrong. Look at them carefully and you will notice a distinct absence of Sealand – the world’s smallest country. Sealand has existed since 1967, a great deal longer than some other so-called nations (East Timor stand up, and please, sit the fuck back down again

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Posted By: Luke - Category: Islands

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