Ponape, FS Micronesia Photograph by Dr. James P. McVey, NOAA Sea Grant Program   Islands of Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae, in the Federated States of Micronesia, in the western Pacific Ocean. Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests   200 square miles (600 square kilometers) -- about four times the size of Washington DC Critical/Endangered

· Little-Known North Pacific Isles
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern

Little-Known North Pacific Isles

Travel to the North Pacific Ocean and you may happen upon the small, isolated, tropical isles of the Caroline Island group. These include the outer islands of Yap State and those of the states of Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae.

Special Features

The Caroline Island group is located near the equator, where temperatures are warm year-round. It also lies on the southern edge of the typhoon belt, so the islands receive ample rain--some more than 232 inches (600 cm) per year! Some of the islands in the group include extinct volcanoes, and some have quite high peaks. The Chuuk Islands consist of a huge, almost circular barrier reef with 69 islets that surround a central lagoon, in addition to small volcanic islands and many raised coral islands or low atolls.

	The islands of Pohnpei and Kosrae have some of the lowest-altitude cloud forests in the world.

Wild Side

Twenty-four species of reptiles and amphibians slither, hop, and scramble in the Caroline Islands. The islands are also home to many birds, including Truk Island ground doves, island swiftlets, Pohnpei flycatchers, Pohnpei lorikeets, Kosrae starlings, highly endangered Pohnpei mountain starlings, and Faichuk white-eyes. Pohnpei is home to 26 species of land snails, a group of invertebrates that are often endemic to individual islands. The vegetation on these islands is quite varied, and it includes mangrove forests, freshwater swamp forests, montane rain forests, and dwarf cloud forests. The montane forests are dominated by palm trees, ferns, and shrubs, with long tropical vines called lianas dangling from the trees.

Cause for Concern

For more than 2,500 years, people have cultivated coconut, breadfruit, taro, bananas, and sugarcane on the Caroline Islands, modifying the native vegetation. Large areas of the islands were devastated during World War II. Homesteading, road construction, hunting of local birds, and tourism are all endangering the biodiversity of the region. And another threat comes from expanding cultivation of a plant called sakau en Pohnpei, the roots of which have a mildly narcotic effect. Introduced rats, cats, snails, birds, snakes, and plants pose a major threat to native wildlife.

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