---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 16:52:34 -0300 (ADT)
From: meincke at upei.ca
To: Multiple recipients of list <siin-l at upei.ca>
Subject: ISLANDS V Electronic Conference
An electronic conference has been established for the ISLANDS V
Conference in Mauritius. To join, send the following message to
LISTPROC at UPEI.CA
SUBSCRIBE ISISA-L FIRSTNAME LASTNAME
Do NOT include anyhting else like signature files
The topics are wide ranging including: Education for Sustainable
Development, Island System Management, Islanders and Political
Economy, Islands on the Global Scene, Knowledge Assesment and
Telematics, Social and Cultural Issues in Island Living, Islanders
and the Ocean and Small Islands and Biodiversity.
More information including titles and full text abstracts can be
found at
http://www.isn.net/islandweb/isisa.html
Please join and send your comments and questions to isisa-l at upei.ca
To start off, here are two abstracts which deal with the central
question of the very survival of small islands. What do you think?
Should we give in to wholesale migration as some people suggest and
has been tried for many islands in Newfoundland and the famous
case of Tory Island in Ireland?
WHAT IF SUSTAINABILITY IS NOT AN OPTION?
Michael Fagence
Dept. of Geographical Sciences and Planning
The University of Queensland
Brisbane, Q4072, Australia
This paper considers the scenario of island sustainability not
being an option for future development. Inevitably, this scenario
is extreme, and is not appropriate to the circumstances of all
islands, even in the Pacific region where global warming may
eventually make habitation untenable. However, there are islands
which are so lacking in resources, which have become so caught up in
the global economy (especially in terms of seeking rising wealth and
welfare), which are becoming bypassed by international air linkages,
and which will eventually be unsupportable from indigenous natural
resources, that perhaps there are only two options: to countenance
wholesale migration, or to experiment with some form of tourism. The
first of these options has been faced under certain circumstances,
and the second is looming as an option following the Rio de Janeiro
and Barbados declarations and agendas for action.
Using Nauru as a case study, this paper explores the implications
and feasibility of these two options. The implications of both
strategies are examined, and some general principles are developed
for islands (either as entire countries or as components of
multi-island countries) for which a new sustainability rationale must
be determined from whatever resources and advantages the islands
have.
A CHANGING APPRECIATION OF ISLAND LIFE: THE OFFSHORE ISLANDS OF
IRELAND
Stephen A. Royle
School of Geosciences Queens University Belfast
Ireland as a whole suffered massive population loss from 1841 to the
1961 census and still has not matched its population peak of 1841, the
last census before the potato famine. The offshore islands of Ireland
lost population at an even quicker rate and hundreds of them have
become depopulated. In 1841, 211 of these islands were inhabited with
a total of 38,138 people, there were just 9,700 living on 66 islands
in 1991.
The islands which are still populated are characterized by an ageing
population and the economies of many of the islands are far from
self-supporting. Yet, the overall picture of life on the Irish islands
in the modern era is not all doom and gloom. People: islanders,
visitors, governments at national and European Union levels realize
that the islands have good qualities; peacefulness, a splendid
environment, tranquillity and cultural survivals; many of them remain
bastions of the Irish language.
This new-found appreciation of island-life is expressed through the
islands co-operatives that try to keep the economy going. There are
new opportunities , in tourism and fish farming for example. The
authorities have improved infrastructure and transportation. Most
important of all, the Irish Government has established a Ministerial
Committee whose mission is to develop the potential of both islanders
and their homelands. Life off the west coast of Ireland will never be
easy but it may at least continue to be lived.
Peter Meincke http://www.upei.ca/~meincke
Chairman ISLAND WEB CONSORTIUM
WWWeb for Sustainable Development of Islands
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