Landing on Swains Island is made on the west side at Taulaga, the only village on the island. Besides a small number of thatched, Samoan- style huts ("fale"), Taulaga has a small white church and a large, barn- like copra shed. Leading from the copra shed to the nearby beach are old railway tracks which were once used to transport copra from the shed to the beach for transfer to cargo vessels. Nearby is a large cleared area that may one day be made into an airport runway to link Swains Island by air to Tutuila, the main island of American Samoa.
Reef coral collections from American Samoa are in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and in the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, W. Germany. The author has a collection of 790 coral specimens for a total of 1547 items known to be from American Samoa.
A total of 177 species (including 3 species of non-scleractinian corals) belonging to 48 genera and subgenera (including the genera Millepora and Heliopora) known to date are listed with data as of frequency of occurrence and habitat.
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CEPA Environment Permit Application Form to Discharge Waste Schedule and Additional Information Schedule 2.
The main objective of the expedition was to compare as large a series of islands of different climatic conditions, ages and geological origins as possible. This necessitated short visits to each selected island. The structure and components of the ecosystem under study were the focus of attention, while their functioning was considered to be of secondary importance.
3 copies
Call Number: ECO [EL],PC 577.52 ECO
Physical Description: x, 220 p. : ill. ; 30 cm
In September 1991 the Government of the Marshall Islands requested assistance in compiling a bibliography of material relating to fisheries and marine resources of the Marshall Islands. After discussions between the staff of the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority and the Fisheries Programme of the South Pacific Commission, it was decided that a search for appropriate documents would take place in Majuro, Guam, Tokyo, Honolulu and Suva during September, October and November 1991.
Look in the SPC shelf under section I.
Call Number: 639.016 IZU
Assessments of the general condition, stocking, composition, and growth of mangroves on the islands of Pohnpei and Yap and at one area on Kosrae were undertaken at the request of these states. Methods used included: reconnaissance on foot, by air and by boat; use of 1976 aerial photographs; remeasurement of forest inventory plots installed by the US Forest Service in 1983; and installation of new inventory plots, examination of public records, and reviews of published data (Pohnpei).
The Regional Seas Programme was initiated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 1974 in response to the selection of the oceans as a priority area by the UNEP Governing Council. It is a global programme implemented through regional
components under the guidance of the Oceans and Coastal Areas Programme Activity Centre at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi.
Each regional action plan is formulated by the Governments concerned to respond to the needs of the region for a comprehensive approach to controlling both the consequences
The tropical seas are liberally sprinkled with coral islands.
Many of them are associated with continents and large continental islands, in relatively shallow water, rising from continental shelves. Many, also, are in deep water - atolls, barrier reef islets round high islands, almost atolls', tops of drowned karsts, and a few moderately elevated atolls. These last are among the most fascinating of all, scientifically.
An article taken from the Atoll Research Bulletin No.272|Kept at Greg's collection|Available online
Call Number: VF 1564 [EL}
Many societies have rules rooted in legal tradition that require the sustainable and efficient use of natural resources. The obligation of stewardship is a feature of
westernised legal systems. In nations following the common law tradition, the doctrine of waste requires owners of land to use it sustainably. Elsewhere, customary law systems
demand strict rules governing the allocation and use of resources. There is, therefore, an existing legal culture into which our generation's obligations towards the world's
resources can be set.
Species-numbers relationships in the McKean Island assemblage
of reef-building corals were investigated to discover how they changed along environmental gradients of the reef. For the purposes of the study, two gradients were identified a complex depth gradient and a wave exposure gradient.
Available online
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 42 p.
At the time of the POBSP visit, cats (Felis domestica), dogs
As of 1969, the scientific community had no general information on the natural history of Namoluk Atoll in the Eastern Caroline Islands of Micronesia. The only significant published source for the atoll was an ethnographic and linguistic account provided by the German physician.
Interface habitats, areas where aquatic and terrestrial habitats intersect, play important functional roles. Interface habitats mediate the exchange of resources (e.g.. energy,
nutrients, water), alter abiotic gradients (e.g.. temperature, salinity, pH. sedimentation, nutrients), insulate abutting habitats from disturbances, and serve as critical habitat in
During participation in part of the Fairbridge Expedition
to New Guinea, February to May, 1969, I had opportunity to visit 17 islands and cays east of the New Guinea mainland for sufficient time to assemble reasonably complete collections oi their terrestrial reptilian fauna. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of that survey. Fairbridge (1971 ) has previously published a brief report on the expedition and. a more detailed one is in preparation.
Available online
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 41 p.
Tongatapu, like Tahiti, was visited by many early
European navigators and was one of the first of the South
Pacific islands to be charted in any detail. Though it was
discovered (and named Amsterdam Island) by Tasman in
January 1643 (Sharp 1968, 152-158), the first comments on
the sand cays of the surrounding reefs were made by Cook
during his second voyage, with the Resolution and Adventure,
in October 1773. On this occasion Cook spent less than a
week at Tongatapu, anchored in the northwest, and commented
In 1965 Vostok Island was visited briefly by Sibley and five members of the Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program (POBSPJ of the Smithsonian Institution. Observations were made from 0900 15 June through 1300 16 June and collections were made of vascular plants, fish, reptiles, birds, mammals, and avian ectoparasites. A small number of seabirds was banded.
Available online
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 12 Pages
From 0900 on 17 June to 0615 on 19 June 1965 Caroline Atoll was visited by a field party from the Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program (POBSP) of the Smithsonian Institution. The field party, led by Sibley, collected and made observations on vascular plants, fish, reptiles, mammals, and birds. All islands with the exception of the northern two-thirds of Nake were visited. Prior knowledge of the biota of Caroline Atoll is very scant, deriving almost entirely from the visits of F. D. Bennett in 1835, Devoy in 1875, and the U.S.S. Hartford in 1883.
Satawal is a small flat coral island in the west central Caroline Islands about 1050 km east-south-east of Yap Island, at latitude 7'21' N, longitude 147'02' E. Although its surface is locally somewhat irregular, its greatest height is not more than about 4 meters above mean low water. Its long axis is about east-west and its area is 1.3 square km. It is surrounded by a fringing reef upward of 100 meters wide. It has no lagoon, so would be classified according to Tayama's scheme as a table reef. From the viewpoint of land ecology it is an atoll.
Fais (Tromelin) is an elevated coral island, surrounded by interrupted cliffs 15-20 meters high, lying some 140 miles east of Yap Island, at latitude 9'46' N, longitude 140'31' E in the western Caroline Islands. It has an area of 2.8 square km, and has a population of about 300 people, Micronesians, speaking a dialect of the Ulithi-Woleai tongue. As with many such raised coral islands, valuable calcium phosphate deposits occur on Fais, the greater portion of which was removed and exported during the period of Japanese rule (1914-1945).
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The Tokelaus are a chain of three atolls, soutii of the Phoenix Group and north of the Sarnoas. Distances (in statute miles) froin Apia, Western Samoa, are approxi~i~ately 300 to Fakaofo, 330 to Nukunono, and 400 to Atafu. Annual rainfall for each atoll is usually in excess of 100 inches but they have experienced long dry spells. llurricanes occasionally pass througii the group and several motus of I4ukunono atoll were swept by waves in the storni of January 29 and 30, 1966.
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Call Number: [EL]