Background

St Helena is a small isolated island (122 sq km)in the South Atlantic Ocean (15˚56'S, 5˚42'W),which arose from volcanic activity to the eastof the mid-Atlantic rift over 14 million yearsago. The island has a complex topography ofridges and deep gorges, plains and hills, themain feature of which is the high central ridgesurrounded by radiating valleys. The island’scoast consists largely of precipitous cliffs, in-terrupted by small bays. St Helena is often de-scribed as ‘an emerald set in stone’, alludingto its verdant centre of pasture, smallholdings,plantation forestry, and indigenous veg-etation, surrounded by rocky wastelands anderoded ‘badlands’ (see Figure 1).

The geographical position of St Helena andthe timing of its emergence have given rise toan endemic flora and fauna of exceptionaltaxonomic isolation and scientific interest,analogous in its level of endemism to that ofNew Caledonia (Mittermeier et al., 1996).Recently Wilson (1992) described St Helena’sbiosphere as only ‘one step removed from asatellite colony in space’.

Over a century ago, St Helena’s plants weredescribed by Hooker as ‘fragments from thewreck of an ancient world’ (Melliss, 1875).Almost all St Helena’s indigenous flowering

plant species and 10 of the plant genera areendemic to the island (eight of the genera aremonospecific, indicating their evolutionaryisolation). There are 14 endemic fern speciesincluding the St Helena tree fern Dicksonia ar-borescens. Almost nothing is known of theisland’s lower plants.

Of St Helena’s approximately 1100 terres-trial invertebrate species, 400 are endemic tothe island: they include 77 endemic species ofweevil (17 endemic weevil genera and fourendemic weevil tribes) and 49 endemic speciesof spider (Basilewsky, 1970, P. Hammondpers. comm.). Subfossil evidence indicates thepresence of a total of five endemic land birdson St Helena in recent history, including alarge species of hoopoe Upupa antaios and acuckoo Nannococcyx psix. One species of landbird remains: the wirebird Charadrius sanctae-helenae, which is a relative of Kittlitz’s sandplover C. pecuarius of southern Africa. Two en-demic petrels probably also remained on theisland at the time of its discovery (Olsen,1975). Now, indigenous seabirds are restrictedto offshore islets owing to predation by catsand rats. The island’s poorly studied marinelife further affirms St Helena’s status as an‘evolutionary laboratory’ (Edwards, 1990).

Unfortunately, St Helena is typical ofoceanic islands that suffered high levels of

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ORYX VOL 31 NO 3 JULY 1997

The progress and problems of the‘Endemic Section’ of St Helena Island

Doug Smith

St Helena is a small Atlantic island with an unusual and remarkable flora andfauna but with a legacy of ecological destruction typical of oceanic islands. Theefforts of the island’s governmental Endemic Section in the conservation of theflora and fauna is examined alongside the objectives of the section as listed in itscurrent business plan. The worthy level of progress that is evident (including therediscovery of species, habitat restoration and a high level of environmentalawareness) is attributed to local ownership, an emphasis on education, andpragmatism and flexibility. The problems that limit the section’s long-termeffectiveness are funding, limited baseline ecological information and limitedtechnical understanding.

destruction and degradation after their dis-covery by European naval powers. The de-cline of St Helena’s biodiversity beganfollowing the island’s discovery in 1502, whengoats and pigs were established there for re-victualling purposes. Destruction intensifiedafter settlement began in 1659 (Cronk, 1993).Past habitat destruction and fragmentation ofthe remaining indigenous habitat has left alegacy which, in combination with relentlessintroductions of exotic plants and invertebratepests, continues to push the island’s remark-able biodiversity into oblivion.

Currently, 13 of the island’s endemicflowering plants have been categorized in theIUCN Critically Endangered category: this in-cludes those that have been reduced to a tinyhandful of individuals and those that, with100–150 individuals remaining, are relativelycommon (Maunder, 1995). The decline in in-vertebrate species is unknown because themost recent thorough survey was carried outin the 1960s. It is feared that many of theisland’s invertebrates will have followed inthe footsteps of the giant earwig Labidura her-culeana which reaches up to 78 mm in length:40 specimens of this earwig, the world’slargest, were collected in 1967 but recent ef-forts to rediscover any individuals of thisspecies have failed (Clarke and Veal, 1989).

Conservation on St Helena in thetwentieth century

George Benjamin is a St Helenian who devel-oped an expert knowledge of St Helena’s floraduring his work as a forest guard for theisland’s Agriculture and Forestry Departmentin the 1970s and 1980s. He, with others, redis-covered several St Helenian endemic plantsthat were previously assumed to be extinct:the she cabbage tree Lachanodes arborea in 1976;the St Helena olive Nesiota elliptica in 1977; andthe St Helena ebony Trochetiopsis ebenus in1980. In 1984, Benjamin established a smallsection of staff at the Agriculture and ForestryDepartment to work on the propagation of theendemic plant species.

This Environmental Conservation Section

(known as the Endemic Section) was based ina small nursery facility established in 1984with financial help from the World Wide Fundfor Nature (WWF). With the help of theInternational Institute of Biological Control,facilities were also established to rear and re-lease biological control agents Hyperaspis pan-thera (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) for ahomopteran Orthezia insignis (Homoptera:Ortheziidae) which threatened the last smallpatches of indigenous gumwood woodland(Commidendrum robustum) that historicallycovered over 60 per cent of the island. The re-lease programme was successful and the fu-ture of the woodland is now secure.

Benjamin also ensured that much of the sec-tion’s time was spent educating the public andschoolchildren about St Helena’s flora. Thereare now virtually no islanders who do not un-derstand the meaning of the term ‘endemic’ orwho cannot recognize a St Helena ebony, andpublic interest is reflected in membership ofthe recently formed St Helena NatureConservation Group. The section pioneeredhabitat restoration and species rescue on StHelena, and is arguably at the forefront ofglobal efforts in restoration ecology.

In 1993, prompted by the 1992 UnitedNations Conference on Environment andDevelopment and by lobbying from the UKDependent Territories Forum, St Helena’sAgriculture and Forestry Department, in col-laboration with the International Institute forEnvironment and Development (IIED) andRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG), initiated aSustainable Environment and DevelopmentStrategy (SEDS; for a full discussion of SEDSsee Maunder et al., 1995). As part of SEDS,measures to conserve the endemic flora wereintensified. A consultant from RBG visited theisland in February 1995 to make recommen-dations for species rescue programmes andhabitat conservation. Benjamin retired in 1995,but the section now has a larger number ofstaff than ever and key members of staff arereceiving overseas training. Contemporary tothe development of the SEDS was the first in-tensive academic research to be focused onany of St Helena’s species: doctorate researchin Trochetiopsis, an endemic genus of two

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species, one of which has passed through abottleneck of two individuals while the otherhas endured a bottleneck of one (Rowe, 1995).

The Agriculture and Forestry Departmenthosted a conference in February 1995, to allowdiscussion of the SEDS among representativesof governmental organizations, the privatesector and the public. Among the discussionsQ. C. B. Cronk (who worked with Benjaminover many years) made two proposals: thecreation of St Helena’s first national park; andthe establishment of a biological researchstation. The first proposal was taken forwardand excited much public debate, culminatingin the gazettement of Diana’s Peak NationalPark in March 1996. A management plan forthe national park was completed at about thesame time and is being implemented. The

park is refuge to almost all of the remainingfragments of St Helena’s endemic tree-fernthicket, which are threatened by invasive NewZealand flax Phormium tenax (Smith andWilliams, 1996; Smith, in press; see Figure 2).

Progress

Progress in terms of sustainably increased sur-vival prospects for the endemic species issummarized in Table 1. The table showsachievements against the four objectives of theEndemic Section as defined in the section’sbusiness plan drawn up in 1995. The smallscale of the island and of its conservationproblems may have aided the substantialprogress that is evident. However, there are

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Figure 2. Fragments of tree-fern thicket (A) are shownsurrounded by exotic NewZealand flax plantation (B)on this hillside in Diana’sPeak National Park. Notealso the areas cleared of flaxplantation (C) inpreparation for trials toinvestigate tree-fern thicketrecreation (D. Smith).

Figure 1. A view south-westfrom St Helena’s central ridge. Itindicates St Helena’s remarkabletopography and the dramaticcontrast between the vegetateduplands and the encirclingeroded wastelands (D. Smith).

key features of the work of the EndemicSection that I suggest have ensured success, ir-respective of the island’s small scale: localownership; a focus on education; and pragma-tism and flexibility.

Local ownership

As described above, conservation on StHelena was pioneered by George Benjamin: sofrom the very start the efforts were locally‘owned’; and the staff of the endemic sectionwanted to build gradually on the work,simply because it was their work and rep-resented their personal endeavours.Furthermore, as the work gained more promi-nence, the public became proud of and sym-pathetic with work to conserve the endemicspecies because it was carried out by commit-ted islanders and because the endemic plantsrepresented something uniquely St Helenian.

This experience underscores the importanceof ensuring local involvement to achieve long-term conservation success and is comparableto experience elsewhere (for example Child,1995). Despite St Helena’s small scale, it has along history of development projects with nolocal ownership, which have ultimately failed.In contrast to conservation projects elsewhere,however, the work of the Endemic Sectionwas unusual in having a reliable source offunds from the St Helena Government and theisland has no direct land-use conflicts.

Focus on education

The emphasis that was placed on education,either through regular radio interviews orthrough work with primary school children,has further reinforced the interest that islanders have in their biological heritage andtheir wish to ensure success. The work of theUK Dependent Territories Forum and the StHelena Nature Conservation Group has alsoraised awareness through the sale of postersand the issue of ‘endemic’ postage stamps(Figure 3).

Pragmatism and flexibility

The work of the section was based uponsimple rules rather than complex theories ofconservation biology. Despite the lack ofscientific research into any of the endemicplants, the section did not hesitate to followbasic rules to stop and reverse species decline.A good example (which also illustrates thecommitment to education) is the establish-ment of endemic trees within the grounds of aschool in order to provide an informal and ac-cessible seed orchard.

Problems

Despite the progress that has been made, cer-tain factors affect the potential for the currentsuccess to result in sustainably reversed con-servation threats (see Table 1). These includerestricted funding, lack of basic ecological in-formation and technical problems.

Funding

The most outstanding constraint upon con-tinued conservation success on the island willbe restricted funding, especially amid the cur-rent climate of public sector reform and econ-omic recession on the island. St Helena, as adependent territory of the UK, is not eligiblefor funding from the Global Environmental

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Figure 3. One of a set of stamps released in August1995 depicting St Helena’s unusual invertebrates.This example, the golden sail spider Argyrodesmellissii, is one of 48 species of spider endemic to theisland.

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Table 1. The progress, current priorities and problems of the Endemic Section of St Helena summarizedagainst each of the four respective objectives of the section in the business plan for 1996/7

Progress so far Priorities now Problems

Objective 1. To save and rehabilitate St Helena’s endemic habitats and increase their extent

1.1 Since 1984 relict flax plantation was cleared 1.1 Clearance of invasive 1.1 No scientific basis ofand stands of endemic trees were established plants from tree fern ecological understandingat High Peak. thicket at High Peak. of endemic habitats.1.2 Patches of gumwood woodland rescued 1.2 Integrated control of 1.2 Very steep terrain limits from an introduced pest by successful introduced pests of physical work in many areas.biocontrol, beginning in 1993. endemic species. 1.3 No technology for cheaper 1.3 Clearance of exotic scrub separating the 1.3 Establishment of and more successful control of two remaining patches of endemic gumwood endemic gumwood invasive plants and pests.woodland (which covered 60% of the island seedlings to link the 1.4 Limited seedling supply forin 1502). fragments. supplementation planting.1.4 Implementation of a rescue plan for the 1.4 Continuation of the tree fern thicket of Diana’s Peak began in 1995 rescue plan to remove(8.4 ha of tree fern thicket cleared of invasive invasive flax from all tree flax; 2-ha restoration trial set up). fern thicket and to 1.5 Diana’s Peak National Park declared in begin tree fern thicket March 1996, to complement the 5-year recreation of key locations.rescue plan. 1.5 Pursuit of further 1.6 Flax cleared around isolated tree ferns funding to support rescue in ‘the Depot’ in 1996. plan and interpretation 1.7 Leader of habitat management team for the park.undergoing training in South Africa.

Objective 2. To recreate endemic habitats in selected areas as they originally grew

2.1 Successful control of feral goats since 2.1 Continued surveillance 2.1 Habitat rescue in the wetter 1960s has allowed recolonization of endemic for feral livestock. parts of the island is higher halophytes in dry rocky coastal zone of 2.2 Further and more priority than habitat St Helena. species-diverse plantings recreation in drier parts: 2.2 Successful establishment of gumwood at Horse Point Plain. funding is limiting.trees at Horse Point Plain, an eroded part 2.3 Control of rabbits and 2.2 Limited seedling supply.of the island. prevention of new exotic2.3 Establishment of stands of St Helena colonization in the south-ebony in a further eroded area. west of the island where

natural colonization of endemic plants is most successful.

Objective 3. To rescue endemic species from the brink of extinction (ensuring all genetic variation is retained)

3.1 Rediscovery of several plant species 3.1 Intensive rescue and 3.1 Technical problems of thought to be extinct. breeding programmes for pollination and propagation: 3.2 Nursery establishment. each of the critically for example the St Helena 3.3 Successful propagation of most endangered plant species olive has a self-incompatibility rediscovered species. to ensure propagation and mechanism and is reduced to 3.4 Programme of propagule collection and seedling production is four individuals.seed orchard (ex situ genebank) development based on genetic security. 3.2 Hybridization problems inunder way. certain genera, uncertain 3.5 Doctorate research on endemic redwood. knowledge of taxonomy of 3.6 Further nursery improvements including certain genera.purchase of equipment for seed storage.

continued…

Facility, a problem experienced by other de-pendent territories of former colonial powers(Mittermeier et al., 1996).

Lack of basic ecological information

Technical solutions that enable more effectivesolutions from each conservation pound ordollar are limited while scientific studies ofthe island’s terrestrial and marine fauna andflora are few and far between. Furthermore, StHelena’s biological interest has received vir-tually no publicity owing to the lack of botan-ical and zoological research. Thus the world atlarge (including donor agencies) remains un-aware of, and therefore indifferent to, St Helena’sconservation value, and applications for fund-ing are less likely to meet with success.

The absence of global publicity also under-mines the ability of the island to ‘add value’ toits flora and fauna through ecotourism as partof the developing ‘high value – low volume’

tourism industry (St Helena Government,1996). This was the reasoning for Cronk’s pro-posal for a biological research station. In factcarrying out research on St Helena is verystraightforward because of the co-operativegovernment and a friendly public.

Technical problems

Technical problems continue to hinderprogress with the rescue of particular species.The lack of understanding of flower structureand pollination mechanisms will pose particu-lar problems for plant propagation. Forexample cross-pollinations cannot yet becarried out on the endemic whitewoodPetrobium arboreum because of its unusualcomposite flowers. The St Helena olive Nesiotaelliptica is reduced to four individuals (onevegetatively propagated from the last wild in-dividual and three offspring of self-polli-nations from that individual) but can produce

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Table 1. (Continued) The progress, current priorities and problems of the Endemic Section of St Helenasummarized against each of the four respective objectives of the section in the business plan for 1996/7

Progress so far Priorities now Problems

3.7 Monitoring survey established for the 3.3 Breeding programmes to species of dryland areas usually assumed to be ensure genetic security have toabundant. be based upon assumptions 3.8 Monitoring of the endemic wirebird and regarding phenotypic fitness, some monitoring of invertebrates carried out take years to implement, and at intervals. require sustainable funding.3.9 Nursery manager on training at RoyalBotanic Gardens, Kew.

Objective 4. To raise public awareness and appreciation of St Helena’s endemic heritage

4.1 Regular radio talks by section staff 4.1 Formalized education 4.1 Time and funding for continuing for some years. in schools across the educational activities are 4.2 Sales of endemic seedlings as garden curriculum through constrained by the Section’s plants to public very popular. information packs for other priorities.4.3 Tree planting and education in schools. teachers.4.4 Establishment of the George Benjamin 4.2 Continued work in Arboretum of endemic trees for public local newspaper and radio.education. 4.3 Further improvements in4.5 Regular conservation bulletin established access to Diana’s Peak andin local newspaper from 1995. High Peak.4.6 Improved access and interpretation for Diana’s Peak National Park and High Peak.4.7 Colour National Park leaflet/poster for public sale.

no more than very occasional seeds due to aself-incompatibility mechanism. Furthermore,there is a hybrid species Trochetiopsis × ben-jaminii between T. ebenus and T. erythroxylon,and a possibility of hybridization problems inthree further genera. Such hybridization wasavoided in historical times due to allopatry orto the absence of subsequently introducedgeneralized pollinators.

In the rescue of habitats, invasive exoticplants and pests present technical problems:New Zealand flax Phormium tenax invadestree-fern thicket through the copious pro-duction of seeds and it is impossible to com-pletely physically remove the flax on the verysteep ground to which the indigenous treefern thicket is now limited; exotic moth larvae(Opogona spp.) threaten adult trees of somespecies such as the he cabbage treePladaroxylon leucadendron.

Conclusion

The remarkable flora and fauna of St Helena isnow in a critical period of its long history: ithas been devastated since human discovery ofthe island in 1502, but great progress has re-cently been made in conservation and resto-ration efforts. With sustained attention,funding and an improved technical know-how, such progress can be maintained andbuilt upon; without these things the island’sspecies and habitats will enter a brief finalphase – of extinction.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Nick Williams, Vanessa Thomas, HazelBowers, Barry Thomas, Georgie Henry, CollieRichards, Mark Williams, Germaine Fowler,Leslie Benjamin, Eric Henry and the St HelenaGovernment.

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Cronk, Q.C.B. 1993. Extinction and conservation inthe St Helena flora: the palaeobiological and eco-logical Background. Boletim do Museu Municipal doFunchal, Suppl. 2, 69–76.

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Rowe, R.E. 1995 The population biology ofTrochetiopsis: a genus endemic to St Helena. PhD the-sis, Oxford University.

Smith, D.J. 1996. A rescue plan for the threatenedtree fern thicket of Diana’s Peak National Park, StHelena. Botanic Gardens Conservation News, 2 (7),46–48.

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Doug Smith*, Environmental Conservation Section,Agriculture and Forestry Department, Island of StHelena, South Atlantic Ocean. *Present address: Bounty Farm, Crawford,Skelmersdale, Lancashire WN8 9QS, UK.

DOUG SMITH

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