Restoring the Oceanic Island Ecosystem Impact and Management of Inva
Loss of biodiversity on tropical and subtropical oceanic islands is one of the most pressing conservation issues. These oceanic islands are well known for their unique fauna and ? ora, which evolved over long periods in isolation from external perturbatio
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Kazuto Kawakami
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Isamu Okochi
Editors
Restoring the Oceanic Island Ecosystem Impact and Management of Invasive Alien Species in the Bonin Islands
Editors Kazuto Kawakami Senior Researcher Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba Ibaraki 305-8687, Japan [email protected]
Isamu Okochi Vice President Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba Ibaraki 305-8687, Japan [email protected]
ISBN 978-4-431-53858-5 e-ISBN 978-4-431-53859-2 DOI 10.1007/978-4-431-53859-2 Springer Tokyo Berlin Heidelberg New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009943062 © Springer 2010 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Preface
Loss of biodiversity on tropical and subtropical oceanic islands is one of the most pressing conservation issues. These oceanic islands are well known for their unique fauna and flora, which evolved over long periods in isolation from external perturbation. However, the majority of these islands in the Pacific were eventually settled by Polynesians and then by Europeans; by about 200 years ago, only a few island groups remained untouched. The Bonin Islands are one of these groups. The Bonin Island group is one of the most remote in the world. The islands are located 1,000 km south of Japan off the eastern fringe of Eurasia. They were first discovered by the Japanese in 1670, settled by Westerners from Hawaii in 1830, and finally recognized as a Japanese territory in 1862 on condition that previous settlers would be protected and allowed to remain with full rights. Because of this complicated history, the Bonins have two names. The Japanese refer to the archipelago as the Ogasawara Islands, after the name of the feudal lord Ogasawara, who insisted that he discovered these islands. The Western name for the island group is the Bonins, which originally came from the Japanese word mounin, meaning “uninhabited.” Before World War II, these islands were developed for crop farming, pasture land, and fuel wood production. During the war, almost all Japanese residents were evacuated from the islands to the mainland and were not allowed back until 1968, when the United States returned the Bonins to Japan. The forests appeared to recover during the postwar years, but researchers found that alien trees had come to dominate the secondary stands, and endemic insects and snails had declined rapidly. Although the researchers visited the islands m
