Monuriki is a small, uninhabited island situated off the coast of Viti Levu in the Fiji Islands, in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean. Monuriki is part of the Atolls islands, and related to a group of three islets in the larger group of islands known as the Mamanuca Islands. This coral and volcanic island is the smallest islet and the southernmost of a small group of three islets, west of Tavua.
Monuriki is of volcanic origin, with a length of 1.15 kilometres (0.71mi) and a width of 600 metres (660yd). The land area is approximately 0.4 square kilometres (100 acres) surrounded on all sides by coral reef. The highest point is 178 metres (584ft). The terrain includes volcanic rocks, lagoons, palm trees, a pine forest, and several small white sand beaches.[1]
The people of Yanuya are the custodians of Monuriki. With the agreement of the Mataqali Navunaivi of Yank village the National Trust of Fiji wild-life experts and other representatives from BirdLife International and Nature Fiji, NTF, with colleagues from the non-government organization BirdLife International, have been restoring the habitat on Monuriki since 2011.[2]
Monuriki was featured as the anonymous island in the 2000 Robert Zemeckis film Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks; some tourists and travel agents refer to Monuriki as 'Cast Away Island', which is not to be confused with Castaway Island, or Qalito, an actual Fijian island within the Mamanuca Islands.[3]
Geography
Monuriki has a length of 1.15 kilometres (0.71mi) and a width of 600 metres (660yd). The island is mountainous, reaching a maximum height of 178 metres (584ft) in the south-east.[4] The land area is approximately 0.4 square kilometres (100 acres) surrounded on all sides 360° by coral reef. The terrain includes volcanic rocks, lagoons, palm trees, a pine forest, and several small white beaches.[1]
Flora and fauna
Fiji crested iguana The Fiji crested iguanaWilson's storm-petrel is strictly pelagic outside the breeding season, and this, together with its remote breeding sites, makes the bird a rare sight on land. Usually, the species is seen only in the headlands during severe storms.
The vegetation consists mainly of higher pandanus, coconut, (Cocos nucifera) and associated species of coastal forests. The low vegetation has been eroded in the past by herds of goats up on the rocks, decreasing the availability of food to the indigenous iguana population. There is a captive breeding program for iguanas, being run at Kula Eco Park by the National Trust of the Fiji Islands (NTF) and funded by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF).[5]
Monuriki is one of the few places on which the endangered Fiji crested iguana, or Brachylophus vitiensis, live. These iguanas feed on a wide range of plants and insects, and spend most of their time camouflaged in the branches of trees.[6] Only a few thousand Fiji crested iguanas live on the three tiny islands of western Fiji: Yadua Tabu, Macuata and Monuriki.
The Brachylophus vitiensis was first featured in a film when Dr. John Gibbons, of the University of the South Pacific, was invited to the screening of the movie Blue Lagoon.[7] The director filmed part of the movie on a remote island, and included shots of the native wildlife to enhance the feel of the movie, including a large colorful iguanid.[7] Gibbons, who had been studying the Fiji banded iguana at the time, travelled to Monuriki and identified it as a distinct species.[7] The species only lives in dry forest habitats, which are one of the most threatened vegetation types in the Pacific.[8] The species was once known to live on 14 islands in the western part of Fiji; however, recent surveys between 2002 and 2004 have only confirmed the species to be living on three islands: Yadua Tabu, Monuriki, and Macuata.[8] Yadua Tabu holds the highest proportion of the species, containing approximately 98% of all individuals, an estimated 6,000 animals. The Yadua Tabu iguanas are the only legally protected population, as Yadua Tabu is a National Trust of Fiji reserve and lacks the feralgoats which have destroyed the lizard's habitat on other islands.[8] Monuriki is also a breeding ground for some sea turtles.
The forests in smaller, offshore, islands are tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests, which are highly vulnerable to being burnt, as well as being vulnerable to deforestation; overgrazing and exotic species can also quickly alter natural communities. Restoration of the forests is possible but challenging, particularly if degradation has been intense and persistent. Degrading dry broadleaf forests often leave thorny shrublands, thickets, or dry grasslands in their place. Tropical dry forests include both deciduous and semi-deciduous forests. A recent work by Howard Nelson suggests that areas which were formerly classified as evergreen forest also fit the criteria for dry forests.
In phytosociology, description of forest associations was physiognomically based. Many of his forest associations overlap modern ideas of dry and moist forests. The climate in Fiji is tropical marine and is consistently warm for the majority of the year, with extreme weather being a rarity. The warm season is from November till April, and the cooler season May to October. Temperatures in the cool season average 22°C (72°F).
The level of rainfall varies, although the warmer season experiences heavier rainfall, especially inland. Winds are moderate, though cyclones occur about once a year, or between ten and twelve times a decade.[9]
The island group of Monuriki is a number of tiny rocky islets in rocky basalt and with several rocky islets, consisting broken cliffs and hills, coasts and corals and a few golden sand coves, surrounded by a coral reef and lagoon, and its white sand beaches.[2]
The group of islets has a drier climate and different habitat from the rain forests that cover most of the Fiji islands. Although not as rich as the rainforest, the plant life of the coast is quite varied, including a number of endemic species. The coast is traditionally home to a number of endangered animals, including terrestrial and marine birds. See List of birds of Fiji. Dry forests are always vulnerable to forest fires, and human intervention. The original vegetation of the coast has been cleared for farming, particularly cattle ranching. There are remains of a coconut plantation. Only two percent of natural dry forest remaining, and it is located in isolated patches, none of which are in protected areas. Dry forests are elected for urban areas, farms and farming communities all along the coast.
While all pandanus is distributed in the tropical Pacific islands, low islands of the Polynesia and Micronesia are their favorite spot: it covers the barren atolls. The tree is grown and propagated from shoots that form spontaneously in the axils of lower leaves. Its fruit can float and spread to other islands without help from man. The fruit is an edible drupe. They grow wild mainly in seminatural vegetation in littoral habitats throughout the tropical and subtropical Pacific, where it can withstand drought, strong winds, and salt spray. Cocos nucifera was probably aided in many cases by seafaring people. Coconut fruit in the wild is light, buoyant and highly water resistant, and evolved to disperse significant distances via marine currents.[10] It has been collected from the sea as far north as Norway.[11]
With the agreement of the Mataqali Navunaivi of Yanua village, the National Trust of Fiji wild-life experts and other representatives from BirdLife International and Nature Fiji, NTF, with colleagues from the non-government organization BirdLife International, have been restoring the habitat on Monuriki since 2011. In recent years conservationists have scrambled to save these beautiful creatures, scientifically named Brachylophus vitiensis, after it emerged that goats and rats were the biggest threat to their ongoing survival on their picturesque island haven. Although the iguanas have bred on the island for centuries, the emergence of predators and others competing with the same resources on Monuriki has made its future survival difficult.[2]
History
Following the mutiny on HMS Bounty on 28 April 1789, Captain William Bligh was the first westerner to sight this group of 20 islands, when Bligh's open-boat journey made the first passage by Europeans through the Fiji Islands. However, the Yasawas remained largely ignored by the wider world until the United States used them for communication outposts during World War II.[12] On his way to Kupang, Captain Bligh and his crew became the first Europeans to visit several islands in the Fijian island group, which is why the sea area north of Viti Levu, which encloses Monuriki, is named "Bligh Water". Bligh Water, together with the Koro Sea, are situated in the middle of the map of Fiji and more or less separate the north of the country from the south.[13]
The uninhabited island was used as the filming location for the 2000 film Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks. As the sole survivor of a plane crash, he is forced to survive on an island like a modern-day Robinson Crusoe. Since the film, Monuriki has become a tourist attraction.[14]
The Western Pacific nation of Tuvalu, formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is situated 4,000 kilometers (2,500 mi) northeast of Australia and is approximately halfway between Hawaii and Australia. It lies east-northeast of the Santa Cruz Islands, southeast of Nauru, south of Kiribati, west of Tokelau, northwest of Samoa and Wallis and Futuna and north of Fiji. It is a very small island country of 26 km2 (10 sq mi). Due to the spread out islands it has the 38th largest Exclusive Economic Zone of 749,790 km2 (289,500 sq mi). In terms of size, it is the second-smallest country in Oceania.
Fiji is a group of volcanic islands in the South Pacific, lying about 4,450 kilometres (2,765 mi) southwest of Honolulu and 1,770 km (1,100 mi) north of New Zealand. Of the 332 islands and 522 smaller islets making up the archipelago, about 106 are permanently inhabited. The total land size is 18,272 km2 (7,055 sq mi). It has the 26th largest Exclusive Economic Zone of 1,282,978 km2 (495,361 sq mi).
The Oceanian realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms and is unique in not including any continental land mass. It has the smallest land area of any of the WWF realms.
The genus Brachylophus consists of four extant iguanid species native to the islands of Fiji and a giant extinct species from Tonga in the South West Pacific. One of the extant species, B. fasciatus, is also present on Tonga, where it has apparently been introduced by humans.
Teraina is a coral atoll in the central Pacific Ocean and part of the Northern Line Islands which belong to Kiribati. Obsolete names of Teraina are New Marquesas, Prospect Island, and New York Island. The island is located approximately 4.71° North latitude and 160.76° West longitude. Teraina differs from most other atolls in the world in that it has a large freshwater lake, an open lens, concealed within its luxuriant coconut palm forest; this is the only permanent freshwater lake in the whole of Kiribati.
Taveuni is the third-largest island in Fiji, after Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, with a total land area of 434 square kilometres. The cigar-shaped island, a massive shield volcano which rises from the floor of the Pacific Ocean, is situated 6.5 kilometres east of Vanua Levu, across the Somosomo Strait. It belongs to the Vanua Levu Group of islands and is part of Fiji's Cakaudrove Province within the Northern Division.
Yadua Taba is a volcanic islet in Fiji, an outlier to the northern island of Vanua Levu, and immediately south of the larger island Yadua. Yadua Taba covers an area of 0.7 square kilometres and has a maximum elevation of 100 meters. Yadua Taba is a protected sanctuary for the Fiji Crested Iguana, Brachylophus vitiensis, and also contains a strand of dry littoral forestry, almost completely lost in the rest of Fiji. Landing here is strictly prohibited.
Lakeba is an island in Fiji’s Southern Lau Archipelago; the provincial capital of Lau is located here. The island is the tenth largest in Fiji, with a land area of nearly 60 square kilometers. It is fertile and well watered, and encircled by a 29-kilometer road. Its closest neighbors are Aiwa and Nayau. Separated by deep sea from the latter but only by shallow waters from the former, when sea levels were lower during glacial episodes Lakeba and Aiwa formed one large island.
Brachylophus fasciatus, the Lau banded iguana, is an arboreal species of lizard endemic to the Lau Islands of the eastern part of the Fijian archipelago. It is also found in Tonga, where it was probably introduced by humans. It is one of the few species of iguanas found outside of the New World and one of the most geographically isolated members of the family Iguanidae. Populations of these iguanas have been declining over the past century due to habitat destruction, and more significantly, the introduction of mongoose and house cats to the islands.
Erythrina variegata, commonly known as tiger's claw or Indian coral tree, is a species of Erythrina native to the tropical and subtropical regions of eastern Africa, the Indian subcontinent, northern Australia, and the islands of the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean east to Fiji.
The Fiji crested iguana or Fijian crested iguana is a critically endangered species of iguana native to some of the northwestern islands of the Fijiian archipelago, where it is found in dry forest on Yaduataba, Yadua, Macuata, Yaquaga, Devuilau, Malolo, Monu and Monuriki.
Brachylophus bulabula, commonly known as the Central Fijian Banded Iguana is a species of iguanid lizard endemic to some of the larger central and northwestern islands of Fiji, where it occurs in Fijian wet forest. It was described by a team led by a scientist from the Australian National University in 2008. It is one of the few species of iguana found outside of the New World and one of the most geographically isolated members of the family Iguanidae. Initially also reported from Gau Island, in 2017 this population was described as a separate species, B. gau. They can grow up to 2 feet long and have an average lifespan of 10-15 years. However, there have been some captive Fiji banded iguanas that have lived as long as 25 years. Fijian banded iguana typically are found in tropical wet islands that are typically 650-1700 feet above sea level. They also like to bask in temperatures ranging from 75–95 °F (24–35 °C). The areas that are most suitable for Fiji banded iguanas are Viti Levu, Vanua Levu, Ovalau, Viwa, and Kadavu. Males are typically are green with blue stripes and the females are green with white stripes.
Malolo Lailai, also known as Plantation Island, is the second largest and most developed of the Mamanuca Islands, lying 20 kilometres west of Nadi on Fiji's main island Viti Levu. Malolo Lailai is the centre of tourism in the Mamanuca Islands, and consists of four resorts, a number of residential houses, a marina and a golf course. The island can be reached in 50 minutes from Port Denarau by the Malolo Cat, a catamaran, or by Malolo Lailai Airport, a 10-minute flight from Nadi International Airport. Separated by a small isthmus which can be walked at low tide, the larger island of Malolo Levu lies north-west of Malolo Lailai.
Brachylophus gibbonsi is an extinct species of large iguanid lizard from Tonga in the South Pacific Ocean. Its remains have been found associated with cultural sites on Lifuka, four other islands in the Haʻapai group, and Tongatapu. It was consumed by the early Tongans and probably became extinct within a century of human colonization of the archipelago 2800 years ago.
The vascular plant flora of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands consists of approximately 61 species native to the 22 vegetated islands and about 69 introduced species, most of which are confined to the two larger inhabited islands, Home Island and West Island. There are no plant species endemic to the islands; however, one variety of Pandanus tectorius, P. tectorius var. cocosensis, is only found growing on these islands. The native vegetation of the two atolls primarily consists of sea-dispersed shoreline plants of the Indo-Pacific region. On the lagoon shoreline, tall shrublands are dominated by Pemphis acidula and Cordia subcordata, often growing in monospecific stands. Closed forest stands are dominated by either Cocos nucifera or Pisonia grandis.
Petite Terre Islands National Nature Reserve is a reserve of the Petite Terre Islands in Guadeloupe. The reserve was established by Decree No. 98-801 of 3 September 1998 as the nature reserve for the islands of Petite Terre. It covers an area of about 990 hectares, which is demarcated by five points fixed with buoys, and includes a land area of 148.6 hectares with the balance as sea area.
The Gau iguana is a species of iguana endemic to Gau Island in the Fijian archipelago. It mostly lives in the well-preserved upland forests of the island, with smaller populations in the degraded coastal forests. It can be distinguished from other South Pacific iguanas by the male's distinctive color pattern and solid green throat. It is also the smallest of all South Pacific iguanas, being about 13% smaller than the third smallest species and 40% smaller than the largest extant species.
The Fiji tropical moist forests is a tropical moist forest ecoregion in Fiji and Wallis and Futuna. It covers the windward sides of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, Fiji's largest islands, as well as the smaller Fijian islands and the three islands that make up Wallis and Futuna, an overseas territory of France. The drier leeward sides of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu are home to the distinct Fiji tropical dry forests ecoregion.
The Tongan tropical moist forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion that includes the Tonga archipelago and Niue.
The Tuamotu tropical moist forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia and the Pitcairn Islands.
1 2 3 Ernest Heatley (2015-05-24). "Home free on Monuriki". Fiji Times. Archived from the original on 2017-04-18. Retrieved 2019-11-24. The people of Yanuya are the custodians of nearby Monuriki, made famous as the island that Tom Hanks filmed the movie Castaway in 2000.
1 2 3 Robert George Sprackland (1992). Giant lizards. Neptune, NJ: T.F.H. Publications. ISBN0-86622-634-6.
1 2 3 Aruna Chand Lata (2002). "REPORT ON IGUANA SEMINAR". BSSP NEWSLETTER. Fiji: University of the South Pacific Division of Biology — School of Biological, Chemical and Environmental Sciences. Archived from the original on 15 October 2008. Retrieved 6 October 2008.
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