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gizmodo.com: The Most Isolated Town on Earth Wants a Radical Redesign


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Smack dab in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, 1,000 miles from human civilization, lies one of the most isolated towns in the world. It’s on an island called Tristan da Cunha, and for the first time, it’s looking to the outside world to plan its future.

 

It takes more than a week to get to The Settlement, as Tristan’s town is often called, by boat. When you do, you might not be able to land because the ocean swells are severe. There’s no airport. It’s a location so remote and unknown, it’s become almost mythical. To geologists, Tristan is the result of an eruption of a volcanic “hotspot” in the middle of the Atlantic. To historians, it’s a time capsule where the last remnants of colonial England remain. To Tristanites—or Trist’ns as some historians call them—it’s a community that preserves a way of life they’ve chosen over the outside world.

 

But this month, Tristan is looking to the world far beyond its tiny boundaries for help. Working with The Royal Institute of British Architects, the local government is staging an open competition for a plan to bring the community into the 21st century and bolster its ability to sustain itself over the next few decades, using everything from architecture to energy and farming innovations. But to know why it’s asking for ideas, it helps to know a bit more about the island itself.

 

http://gizmodo.com/the-most-isolated-town-on-earth-needs-a-radical-redesig-1694550855

 

Certainly worth reading, especially if like me you hadn't heard of this place.  I'm not sure how they plan on funding any of the projects they are considering but it's certainly an interesting question.  

 

 

I feel as if the writer is a little too fixated on the absence of internet access and speed they have at the one internet cafe they do have.  I guess it's because I lived before smart phones and high speed internet, that I don't see that as the biggest thing lacking on this remote island. 

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I suppose a pop-up island such as this wouldn't have any native land animals, right? It's ecosystem would have to be comprised of fish, birds, and maybe some amphibians.

Clearly there's vegetation, but how many insects exist on the island?

Could be that the ships they came in on harbor such things, or perhaps they brought their own cattle or other animals with them.

Maybe I'm not terribly knowledgeable on the subject, but the idea of an island sprouting up out of the ocean and the subsequent formation of it's ecosystem is fascinating.

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I suppose a pop-up island such as this wouldn't have any native land animals, right? It's ecosystem would have to be comprised of fish, birds, and maybe some amphibians.

Clearly there's vegetation, but how many insects exist on the island?

Could be that the ships they came in on harbor such things, or perhaps they brought their own cattle or other animals with them.

Maybe I'm not terribly knowledgeable on the subject, but the idea of an island sprouting up out of the ocean and the subsequent formation of it's ecosystem is fascinating.

You're right, this is a fascinating topic. There's a lot that you can read about what's called Island Biogeography. Basically, it has a lot to do with how long it's been an island before humans showed up, and what humans did since.

 

Hawaii, for example, is an island that "just sprang up out of the ocean" (well, several islands). They've been around long enough before humans that, although very isolated indeed, plants and animals did eventually make it out there. They get swept out in storms, washed out to see, etc. You'll notice, however, that while they may have lots of endemic birds and other small animals that can fly and/or get picked up and carried, they'll have very few endemic mammals, especially larger ones (the Hawaiian monk seal being one exception with an obvious explanation). 

 

I don't know how long about this island formed, nor what endemic flora and fauna existed before people colonized it. But usually, all bets are off once white people's boats show up. They tend to bring rats first, and then usually bring cats to eradicate them, which often eradicate anything endemic that was there originally. They often also bring livestock, which does unusual things to vegetation.

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