Lord Howe Island, Australia Photograph by Darlene Blasl   Island off the east coast of mainland Australia Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests   50 square miles (100 square kilometers) -- about the size of Washington DC Critical/Endangered

· Untouched Forests
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Untouched Forests

If you took a tour of the inhabited islands in the Pacific, you'd find that most of them have been drastically changed by people. But that's not the case on Lord Howe Island. Located about 435 miles (700 km) east of Australia, the island is covered with a rich subtropical rain forest. And that forest is home to a unique assemblage of plants, birds, insects, and reptiles.

Special Features

Lord Howe Island is a crescent-shaped remnant of a volcano that formed almost seven million years ago. About 6 miles (10 km) long, the island is mostly covered with rain forest, with some areas of scrub, grassland, and clearings. Warm temperatures and steady rains throughout the year help nourish the rain forest vegetation, which includes palm trees, pandanus trees, ferns, mosses, and more.

	In the 1970s, the population of Lord Howe Island woodhens fell to just 25 individuals. But after intensive management programs, their numbers have bounced back to more than 220.

Wild Side

Because most of Lord Howe Island's plants and animals evolved in isolation, the biodiversity of the island is extraordinary. Almost half of the island's native plants are endemic. More than a hundred species of birds frequent the islands, including landbirds such as the Lord Howe Island rail and the Lord Howe Island white-eye. Other birds endemic to the island include subspecies of golden whistler, silvereye, and pied currawong. In addition, numerous seabirds are found here. The island is home to half the world's population of flesh-footed shearwaters and the greatest concentration of red-tailed tropic birds. It is also one of the few known breeding grounds of the Providence petrel. A species of bat is the only native mammal to inhabit the island, but a great variety of land snails, flies, earthworms, and spiders crawl, slither, and fly in and around its forests.

Cause for Concern

About 10 percent of Lord Howe Island's forests has been cleared for human use, and another 20 percent has been disturbed by domestic cattle and feral sheep, goats, and pigs. Still, a remarkable 75 percent of the island's land area was declared a Natural World Heritage Site in 1982. Despite a large number of introduced species that harm Lord Howe's biodiversity, goats have recently been eliminated, feral pig numbers are down, and there are ongoing efforts to control rats, mice, and introduced plants.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.