Lord Howe Island: the unspoiled Australian paradise whose wildlife is being killed by plastic
Lord Howe Island, a crescent-shaped speck cast adrift in the Pacific Ocean four hundred miles off the coast of Australia, has to date been the little-known preserve of intrepid travellers in search of unspoilt natural beauty.
The island’s myriad natural attractions, which include a largely untouched cloud forest and endemic plant and wildlife, was recognised as a World Heritage Site in 1982 due to its global natural significance. It’s also noteworthy for being home to the world’s southernmost coral reef.
The island has also successfully retained an exotic air of mystery in the face of global mass tourism by allowing just 400 visitors a day to alight on its soft golden sands, thus making it one of the world’s most exclusive travel destinations.
Sir David Attenborough, the much-loved broadcaster and naturalist, has described Lord Howe Island as: “So extraordinary, it is almost unbelievable... few islands, surely, can be so accessible, so remarkable, yet so unspoilt.” The accessibility is relative though: the island is a two-hour flight from mainland Australia.
The island was seemingly firmly established as the stuff of nature lovers’ dreams but the broadcast of Drowning in Plastic, a BBC documentary presented by naturalist Liz Bonnin, has revealed that Lord Howe is also harbouring an environmental nightmare of global proportions.
Plastic pollution, which can be found in every ocean on Earth, has been an increasingly urgent global talking point since the broadcast of Blue Planet II in autumn 2017.
In response, Bonnin, wanting to see and record the extent of the problem for herself, travelled to Lord Howe Island earlier this year to meet and film a group of scientists studying the world’s largest colony of flesh-footed shearwaters, which are believed to consume more plastic relative to their size than any other marine creature. Seabirds, which largely feed on marine life and as a result are mistaking shards of plastic for food, are an important indicator of ocean health.
In heartbreaking scenes, Bonnin looked on as a scientist induced vomiting in a flesh-footed shearwater chick. “They’re gradually feeding their chicks to death,” whispered a tearful Bonnin, as the chick regurgitated 20 shards of plastic. Bonnin and the team later found flesh-footed shearwater chicks dying of starvation on the beach as a result of plastic consumption.
Plastic in the marine environment is a global problem with an estimated eight million tonnes entering our oceans each year at the rate of one lorry load per minute. This discarded plastic, which is broken down by waves and UV light, is then capable of travelling around the globe on ocean currents.
The North Pacific Ocean is home to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a region in which plastic, chemical waste and other rubbish has accumulated and is currently three times the size of France.
