Reclaiming Palmyra Atoll: A history of conservation efforts

2024-11-12

If you start at Hawaii and travel 1,000 miles south, you’ll run into a cluster of tiny islands known as islets that make up the Palmyra Atoll.There’s just around 600 acres of land above the sea, but below it there are 15,000 acres of some of the most diverse coral reef systems on the planet.Palmyra was decimated during World War II by deforestation and rats , which ate pretty much everything — crabs, insects, seabird eggs, chicks ... even the trees.For more than ten years, there...

If you start at Hawaii and travel 1,000 miles south, you’ll run into a cluster of tiny islands known as islets that make up the Palmyra Atoll.

There’s just around 600 acres of land above the sea, but below it there are 15,000 acres of some of the most diverse coral reef systems on the planet.

Palmyra was decimated during World War II by deforestation and rats , which ate pretty much everything — crabs, insects, seabird eggs, chicks ... even the trees.

For more than ten years, there’s been an effort to reclaim Palmyra, and it’s succeeding — restoring the landscape and the reef and providing a blueprint for other conservation efforts.

Matt Miller lives in Boise and is the editor of the Nature Conservancy’s online blog "Cool Green Science" and author of the book, "Fishing Through the Apocalypse." Three years ago, he got to go fishing on Palmyra Atoll as part of the Fishing for Science Research Program and he’s going to share his story at the Boise Public Library on Tuesday, Nov. 19. He joined Idaho Matters for a preview.

Comments (3)