In many ways, the old adage that ‘geography is destiny’ is a truism for places defined by extreme environments, most especially small islands. By their very nature, small islands are limited and finite in significant ways. Their land masses are fixed, the availability of potable water resources is generally limited, arable land may well be minimal, and many traditional livelihoods are declining while reliance upon an emerging single industry, such as tourism or financial services, continues to grow. The very survival of island populations has often been in question, though perhaps at no time more so than today.

Two recently...

The maritimity of Hobart’s Hunter Street Wharf is hidden by neither the bitumen’s flat expanse, nor the sharp verticality of four-storeyed Georgian warehouses that now serve as boutique ‘this-and-that’. Diesel odours from fishing boats bobbing in harbour waters lace the air but cannot disguise the brine-smell. Cars squat on concrete piers over the dark moving mass of the Derwent River. Embedded in the sidewalk and running the length of the wharf is a bronze line symbolizing the curvature of the original shore of Hunter Island. It is a complex thread of cultural and natural heritage particular to here and yet...

Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada’s smallest and most densely populated province, is an arc-shaped land mass of 2,185 square miles nestled on the eastern seaboard in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The island’s heritage landscape is made up of a rich layering of natural and cultural forms in distinctive patterns and arrangements. The natural landform pattern of gentle hills carved into the sandstone bedrock by glacial streams has evolved into a cultural landscape of rolling fields framed by parallel hedgerows, with farmsteads settled in wooded groves. Coastal roads dip into forested hollows and open up to wide ocean views on...

The Maltese archipelago occupies 120 square miles and contains three inhabited islands and a number of small islets. Based on end-of-year estimates, Malta’s total population reached 410,300 in 2007: this makes Malta one of the most densely populated archipelagos in the world, with some 3,300 persons per square mile (NSO 2008a). As a result of these conditions, land – which is Malta’s primary, non-renewable natural resource – is in short supply and undergoing rapid change. Indeed, conflicts over human-induced land use change are central to environmental issues in Malta. As Boissevain (2004: 234) notes, ‘Malta is the most densely populated...

The musings of Victor Hugo sum up very well the essence of the Channel Islands. Constitutionally, geographically and physically, this description still holds good today. Guernsey, the subject of this paper, is the second largest of the Channel Islands. The islands of Alderney, Sark, Herm, Lihou and Jethou are part of its Bailiwick; but the larger island of Jersey is a separate Bailiwick. Guernsey is positioned some 32 miles off the western coast of the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy in France, and 75 miles from mainland Britain. The Bay of St Malo, in which it and the other Channel Islands...

Jersey is a crown dependency and is neither part of the United Kingdom (U.K.) nor the European Union (EU). The U.K. is, however, ultimately responsible for the island’s defence and international representation. The island has a special relationship with the EU, as defined by Protocol 3 to the U.K. Treaty of Accession. The island is governed by the States of Jersey (the States), which presently comprise fifty-three elected members (Senators, Deputies and Parish Constables) presided over by a Bailiff (a Crown appointee) with a Lieutenant Governor as the Queen’s representative.

The issues of the constitution and government of Jersey –...

The French island of Corsica lies in the Northern Mediterranean, only 7 miles north of the Italian island of Sardinia. It has a land area of 3,350 square miles, and a permanent population of 279,000 in 2006, making for a rather low population density of 83 inhabitants per square mile. However, tourism in Corsica is significant, if seasonal: the island receives almost 2.5 million tourists annually, with a peak of some 450,000 visitors in the month of August alone. This is equivalent to a ratio of almost two tourists for each inhabitant. Given the island’s topography, both tourist and residential...

One afternoon, some young local Favignana women invited me to join them at Marasolo Beach, a well known spot easily found by following the road signs from the main town. After meeting them, I was led a few hundred yards away to a secluded and not well known cove, just a few minutes’ walk from the main beach. We simply disappeared behind some rocks and found a quiet spot to bathe and relax away from the crowds. When I asked how they knew about that spot, they told me that the cove was the local ‘swimming pool’ where children learn...

Resource management in the Hawaiian Islands depends on colonial history, population dynamics, urbanization levels and globalization forces. The levels of enfranchisement and differing world views of newcomers to the islands and old-timers remain key factors. Legitimacy of jurisdiction, governance and land tenure may be challenged, leading to contentious land issues. These grievances need addressing to progress from contestation to shared principles.

If population growth cannot be stopped, it can at least be managed by planning the size, density, location, phasing and type of development. A novel approach is to adopt ecological concepts and low-impact green design for those areas where...

Between five and two thousand years ago, as sea level dropped by as much as six feet in the western tropical Pacific, two archipelagic atoll chains under formation for 15 to 20 million years emerged in what is now called the Marshall Islands (Wiens 1959; Yamaguchi et al. 2005). The twin chains run between 5° and 15° N latitude and 162° and 173° E longitude. They comprise twenty-nine atolls, each with numerous small islets surrounding a central lagoon, and five low-lying limestone islands. The 70 square miles of dry land lies just above the high-water mark, only a few metres...

The Bahama Islands stretch from the coast of Florida to border the Turks and Caicos Islands and Cuba in the south. As an archipelago with over twenty-five inhabited islands, The Bahamas pose a considerable challenge to development efforts because critical infrastructure must be replicated over the major islands. For a population of less than 310,000, for example, The Bahamas government has had to construct 62 airports, more than 150 public schools and many health care facilities.

Given the high cost of development in The Bahamas, its small population and limited tax base, foreign direct investment (FDI), the inflow of foreign...

The San Andrés archipelago is a Colombian department in the western Caribbean. The largest island, San Andrés, is 500 miles northwest of the Colombian coast and about 100 miles east of Nicaragua. It measures 7.5 miles in length with a width of less than 2 miles, and covers a land area of just over 10 square miles. According to the most recent census, the archipelago had a population of about 71,000 in 2005. Some 5,000 people lived in Old Providence and Santa Catalina, with the remaining 66,000 inhabitants in San Andrés (DANE 2007). Census data are generally disbelieved, however, and...

In 2006 the New Economics Foundation (NEF) published the Happy Planet Index (HPI). This multivariate index went even further than the UN’s Human Development Index in formulating a means of making international comparisons without these being dominated by wealth differentials: the measures in the HPI are limited to life satisfaction, life expectancy and an ecological footprint. Topping the first HPI was the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, while islands generally held strong positions in all the regional comparisons. Andrew Simms, director of the NEF, in marking Vanuatu’s 2006 victory, acknowledged that there exist islands with serious problems, such as Nauru,...