Strandings of Oceania Database Protocols for data users
The Pacific Islands Framework for Nature Conservation and Protected Areas 2021 – 2025 was made possible through the support of the members and partners of the Pacific Islands Roundtable for Nature Conservation (PIRT), Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and support for publishing from the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEA) Phase 3 Programme (ACP MEAs 3).
A traditional sport called Ibbon Itsi is an annual competition that last about a week, where men try and catch as many frigate birds as possible. Tame frigate birds are used to lure other frigate birds.
Survey of echinoderm diversity in Nauru. 18 species of echinoderms, most of them new records for the island. A total of 24 species of echinoderms are now known from Nauru. Six holothuroids (sea cucumbers), five echinoids (sea urchins), five asteroids (sea stars), five ophiuroids (brittle stars) and three crinoids (feather stars)
Coral reefs in the Southwest Pacific are generally in good condition. There was extensive
coral bleaching during 2000-2002. Since then coral reefs have shown highly variable recovery
with some reefs recovering fully to pre-bleaching levels of live coral cover, whereas others
have shown virtually no recovery. Nauru experienced coral bleaching and mass fish kills in
October-December 2003, possibly due to unusually high sea surface temperatures. The greatest
threats to coral reefs of the region continue to be human activities and cyclones, with reefs
Synthesis of the state of marine resources in Nauru, specifically coral reef biodiversity, fauna and flora and the threat to these resources.
Six survey methods were applied to suit the different coastal habitats of Nauru. These were reef benthos
transects, reef front timed walks at night, manta tow, reef front timed swims in the daytime, lobster night
searches (reef front timed swims at night) and deep-water timed scuba searches. Where possible, information
from this assessment was compared with that collected during the PROCFish survey in 2005, to explore
changes in resource status over time.
8 page report:
Tridacna maxima used for adze blades
The vegetation and flora of Nauru are among the most impoverished, degraded, disturbed and displaced in the Pacific islands. Long habitation, almost a century of opencast phosphate mining, continuous bombing, destruction and displacement of the people during World War 11, rapid urbanization and the abandonment of agriculture and subsistence activities have arguably produced one of the most severely modified nautral and and cultural floras on earth.
The indigenous floras of the raised phosphatic limestone island of Nauru and the atolls of the Gilbert Islands are among the poorest on earth. Long settlement, widespread destruction during World War II, monocultural
expansion of coconut palms, and more than 75 yr of open-cast phosphate mining in the case of Nauru have led to serious vegetation degradation, disturbance, and displacement. The floras of Nauru and the Gilbert Islands consist of
Ten composite soil samples (0-15 cm depth) were collected from abandoned phosphate-mined sites on Nauru Island (Central Pacific) and analyzed for % organic C and % N. The samples represent a temporal sequence (chronosequence) of soil development spanning < 55 yr. The increase of% C and % N was fairly rapid.
The environment of Nauru, a raised atoll located in the central Pacific Ocean (0° 32′ S, 166° 56′ W), was
devastated by mining of phosphate “rock” during the twentieth century. Some 100 million tonnes of
phosphate material has been removed, leaving more than 80% of the island as a dolomite
pinnacle–dominated karrenfeld. Based on fieldwork examining sites unmined at that time, laboratory
studies on undisturbed profiles, aerial photographs, and old mining maps, a picture of what the soil
Radio Interview:
Alex Feary is a NZ ecologist that undertook his Masters dissertation on field work in Nauru. The masters was for Victoria University, New Zealand. He particularly noted the abundance of invasive species and the need to manage them.
The restoration of Nauru’s mined areas is fundamental to the future wellbeing of the people and ecosystems of Nauru. Extensive open cast phosphate mining on Nauru over the last 100 years has led to soil losses and landscape degradation to the extent that over 70% of this South-Western Pacific island state is now uninhabitable and almost all productive land has been lost.
The avifauna of Nauru has received scant attention over the past nearly 130 years since
Otto Finsch reported the five species he observed on 24 July 1880 (Finsch 1881). Pearson
(1962) recorded at least 16 species over a period of six months in 1961, and he stated that
Finsch’s work comprised ‘the only previous ornithological literature available concerning
Nauru’. King (1967) and Garnett (1984) merged seabird records from Nauru with those
from the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati), without stating which may have pertained only to the
The environmental issue of greatest concern to the people of Nauru is the degradation of the mined phosphate lands. In all of the series of consultations that were carried out between the people of Nauru and the various teams of technical experts to ascertain the feasibility of rehabilitating the island, it was constantly emphasised that the total degradation of topside, including localized inland, water shortages and coastal erosions are problems that need to be addressed for sustainable development.
Five species of dragonflies and one damselfly are recorded from Nauru for the first time, and constitute the first records of Odonata from this island republic identified to species. None is endemic; all are widespread in the Indo-Australian region and the islands of the west central Pacific Ocean. Diplacodes bipunctata (Brauer) is the most common species throughout the island, but Ischnura aurora (Brauer) appears locally abundant, possibly seasonally. Breeding is confirmed for all species.
Four species of butterflies are reported from Nauru for the first time and as first records of butterflies from the island republic. None is endemic. Three of the four species are widespread in Oceania: Badamia exclamationis (Fabricius), Danaeus plexippus (Linnaeus), and Hypolimnas bolina (Linnaeus). The other, Petrelaea tombugensis (Rober), belongs to a genus that also is widespread in the Pacific. The small number of widespread species found on Nauru
The avifauna of Nauru has received scant attention over the past nearly 130 years since Otto Finsch reported the five species he observed on 24 July 1880 (Finsch 1881). Pearson (1962) recorded at least 16 species over a period of six months in 1961, and he stated that Finsch’s work comprised ‘the only previous ornithological literature available concerning Nauru’. King (1967) and Garnett (1984) merged seabird records from Nauru with those from the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati), without stating which may have pertained only to the Gilberts. More recent checklists of Nauru birds (e.g.