Exploring the ecological diversity and cultural values of the Pacific Remote Islands
November 2023
The atolls, shoals, banks, reefs, seamounts, and open-ocean waters surrounding the Pacific Remote Islands are some of the most remote and biologically rich places in the world. They have long connected people and nature across the vast Pacific Ocean. As part of a cross-cultural voyaging pathway connecting Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia, the area is at the crossroads of extraordinary nature, culture, and history, serving as a sentinel of change in our ocean and climate. Their remoteness, natural and cultural heritage, historic resources, and limitless opportunity for scientific discovery, make the Pacific Remote Islands critical to protect for generations to come.
A school of mimic goatfish (Mulloidichthys mimicus and some M. vanicolensis) swims over a large field of coral
A red booby chick at Johnston Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.
Lighthouse tower on Baker Island, now charted as a day beacon (an unlighted nautical sea mark).
Reef shark
Moorish Idols and teardrop butterfly fish are only a couple of immense varieties of reef fish that call Kingman Reef National Wildlife Refuge home
Ecology
The Pacific Remote Islands and their surrounding marine areas lie near the center of the Pacific Ocean and are farther from human population centers than any other U.S. area. They include some of the largest and most pristine collections of coral reefs, seamounts, and deep sea protected areas on the planet. The region covers a large geographic extent and diverse oceanographic conditions. Johnston and Wake Atolls are subtropical and lie north of the Equator and southwest of the Hawaiian Islands. Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll are located in a central transitional area between subtropical and tropical regions of the Pacific. Howland, Baker, and Jarvis Islands are in the equatorial upwelling zone. The area also contains hundreds of seamounts that extend toward the surface from the depths of the sea and are hotspots of species abundance and diversity.
Masked Booby at Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge
Coral reef ecosystem off Palmyra Atoll.
Rare giants clams found on Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef National Wildlife Refuge
A manta ray train moves above the coral reef at the remote Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge
Brittle stars seen living in the branches of coral during exploration at 1,800 meters depth on Titov Seamount within the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument
These areas serve as havens for fish and wildlife species that face threats in other parts of their range, including seabirds, native plants, sea turtles, dolphins, whales, pearl oysters, giant clams, coconut crabs, large groupers, sharks, humphead wrasses, and bumphead parrotfishes. Fish biomass on these reefs is double that found in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and orders of magnitude greater than the reefs nearby heavily populated islands. Expansive shallow coral reefs and deep coral forests can be found here, with some corals more than 4,000 years old. These small dots of land in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean are vital nesting habitat for millions of seabirds and resting habitat for migratory shorebirds.
Over geological and recent history, these interconnected islands, reefs, shoals, and seamounts have served as key stepping stones for the colonization and dispersal of species between the eastern and western, and the northern and southern Pacific Ocean. They are ideal “laboratories” for assessing the effects of climate change on reef ecosystems in the absence of other direct human impacts.
Geologic History and Features
Part of the Line Islands chain, Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef are remnants of volcanoes from some 65–120 million years ago. Wake Atoll, comprising Wake, Wilkes, and Peale Islands, is the northernmost atoll in the Marshall Islands geological ridge and perhaps the oldest living atoll in the world. Howland, Baker, and Jarvis Islands hug the Equator and were formed as fringing reefs around small islands built by volcanoes some 65–120 million years ago.
Conical seamount (left) and guyot (right), showing the difference in the summit morphology.
Seamounts of Johnston Atoll.
Beyond the shallow fringing reefs and terraces, the slopes of the extinct volcanoes drop off sharply to the deep floor of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Here, currents create localized, nutrient-rich upwelling near the islands that result in high fish biomasses. These remote reefs are characterized by a large proportion of apex predators in the fish community as well as an abundance of giant clams and sea turtles. And on the deep ocean floor, these undersea mountains create islands of hard rocky bottom in a surrounding expanse of mud, providing a home to a different community of animals than are found in or on the soft mud.
Crossroads of the Pacific
Ancestors of Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micronesian Indigenous Peoples voyaged across the Pacific demonstrating tremendous courage, knowledge, and skill in their ability to interpret the stars of the night sky, the dynamic weather and ocean patterns, and numerous lifeforms to navigate, and explore, and settle across Oceania. Polynesian and Micronesian oral histories document how Indigenous seafarers traveled marine corridors to reach islands throughout the Pacific. The Pacific Remote Islands have long served as stopping points for food and other resources, temporary shelter, and fulfilling cultural duties during cross-Pacific migrations. The islands functioned as nodes beyond the voyaging spheres surrounding larger islands and archipelagos which allowed the vastness of the largest ocean on Earth to become a shared home.
The original explorers of the islands came by sea in what is considered one of the boldest maritime migrations in human history. The Pacific Remote Islands were part of the broader exploration and settlement of the Pacific, with the Samoan Islands — some of the oldest settlements in the region — originally discovered and settled more than 3,000 years ago as part of the Austronesian expansion eastward into the Pacific.
Map showing spread of Austronesian people with routes and dates as known at that time. Adapted (with island locations) from one first shown in Bellwood et al. (2011) and is taken from Benton et al. (2012).
Western Exploration and Colonization
Western explorers from Spain, France, England, the Netherlands and eventually the U.S. passed through the South Pacific as part of larger global circumnavigations and regional exploration, and in pursuit of resources like whale oil or dried coconut (copra). They brought with them foreign tools and foodstuffs, cultural traditions, language, religion, and beliefs. Western explorers planted the seeds of colonization, which extended from the 17th to the 20th centuries and imposed political control and economic exploitation by European and U.S. powers across the region. The Pacific Remote Islands were spared some of these impacts due to their remoteness and small land area. Though Indigenous Pacific Islanders had already entered this region long ago, western explorers “rediscovered” many of the Pacific Remote Islands in an uninhabited state as early as the 1820s.
The routes shown on this map are the estimated paths of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842, an exploring and surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands.
In 1856, the U.S. Congress passed the Guano Act, allowing U.S. citizens to claim “unclaimed” islands containing deposits of guano (bird droppings, mined and used for agricultural fertilizer). The U.S. claimed Baker, Howland, Jarvis, Johnston Atoll and Kingman Reef under the Act. Guano mining ended in the late 19th century, and in the relative absence of human activities, the coral reef ecosystems remained undisturbed until the early 20th century. In 1936 Baker, Howland, and Jarvis were placed under the jurisdiction of the Department of Interior.
Hui Panalā`au Settlement
After the mid-nineteenth century guano-mining boom and guano depletion from several islands in the equatorial Pacific, the islands of Howland, Baker, and Jarvis were uninhabited until the 1930s. Military and commercial air routes between Australia and California then brought these islands to the attention of the United States. At that time, the political claim to the islands was unclear.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to establish the three islands as U.S. territories for strategic and economic purposes. As establishing a permanent presence of active duty military personnel would have violated international law, the U.S. sought instead to establish a presence with Native Hawaiian civilians. From 1935 to 1942, 130 mainly Hawaiian men, many of them recent graduates of the Kamehameha School for Boys, known as Hui Panalāʻau, or "society of colonists," occupied the islands to establish the U.S. claim. The settlers’ tasks included recording weather conditions, cultivating plants, recording the types of fish that they caught, observing bird life, and collecting specimens for the Bishop Museum on Oʻahu. They also prepared for Amelia Earhart's arrival on Howland Island in 1937, but she never arrived, disappearing en route to the island on July 2, 1937. On December 8, 1941, a fleet of Japanese twin‐engine bombers attacked Howland, Baker, and Jarvis Islands. They killed Hawaiian colonists Joseph Keliʻihananui and Richard "Dickey" Whaley. The United States had officially entered into World War II.
Graduates and students of Kamehameha School onboard the Itasca, 4th expedition, January 1936. Back row, left to right: Luther Waiwaiole, Henry Ohumukini, William Yomes, Solomon Kalama, James Carroll. Front row, left to right: Henry Mahikoa, Alexander Kahapea, George Kahanu, Sr., Joseph Kim. Image courtesy of George Kahanu, Sr.; credit: Center for Oral History, Social Science Research Institute, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum.
World War II
In January 1941, the U.S. Navy constructed a military base on Wake Island, and by August the first permanent marines and Navy personnel were deployed to the base. By December, more than 1,200 civilian workers were there to help build up the base. In addition, at least 45 indigenous Chamorro men from the Mariana Islands were on Wake as employees of Pan Am Airways, a stop on the Pacific Clipper route. On December 8, 1941, timed with the attack on Pearl Harbor and other bases in Hawaiʻi, the Japanese began their assault on Wake. After a number of battles by air, sea, and land, the U.S. troops surrendered to the Japanese forces on December 23, 1941. Many of those captured were used as forced labor and/or killed. Wake Island was held by the Japanese until the end of the war. During the war, the U.S. also constructed and occupied military bases at Johnston and Palmyra Atolls, and Baker Island. Jarvis and Howland Islands were also briefly occupied during the war. With the closure of the military base at Johnston Atoll in 2004, only Wake Island remains an active U.S. military base.
Conserving the Crossroads
National Wildlife Refuges in the Pacific Remote Islands
National wildlife refuges, managed by the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, were the earliest conservation measures established in the Pacific Remote Islands area. Johnston Atoll was designated as a refuge in 1926; Howland, Baker, and Jarvis were designated as refuges in 1974; Kingman and Palmyra in 2001; and Wake Atoll in 2009. The refuges were established to protect natural and cultural resources including historic features, plants, invertebrates, seabirds, corals and other marine wildlife.
At Howland Island, Baker Island, Palmyra Atoll, and Kingman Reef, the terrestrial areas, reefs,and waters out to 50 nautical miles are part of the National Wildlife Refuge System. At Jarvis Island, the National Wildlife Refuge extends to 200 nautical miles. At Wake Atoll and Johnston Atoll, the terrestrial areas, reefs, and waters from 0 to 200 nautical miles are also protected as units of the National Wildlife Refuge System; however the terrestrial areas are currently under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Air Force.
The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument
The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument was established on January 6, 2009, by President George W. Bush under the authority of the Antiquities Act of 1906. It was expanded to its current size on September 25, 2014, by President Barack Obama. Protecting 495,189 square miles of open ocean, coral reef, and island habitats — nearly five times the size of all the U.S. national parks combined — the monument sustains species including corals, fish, shellfish, marine mammals, seabirds, insects, and vegetation not found anywhere else in the world. The monument also includes 165 known seamounts that are hotspots of species abundance and diversity.
The Monument is jointly managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries and is fully protected by the Presidential Proclamations that established it. The Monument encompasses seven national wildlife refuges: Howland, Baker, and Jarvis Islands; Johnston, Wake, and Palmyra Atolls; and Kingman Reef. The U.S. Air Force has jurisdiction of the terrestrial areas at Wake Atoll and Johnston Atoll and The Nature Conservancy owns and manages a portion of Palmyra Atoll as a preserve.
Proposed National Marine Sanctuary
On March 24, 2023, President Joseph Biden directed the Secretary of Commerce to consider initiating the designation process for a national marine sanctuary to add additional protections to the significant natural and cultural resources of the submerged lands and waters surrounding the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. This would include waters both within and outside the Monument boundary, to the full extent of the seaward limit of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), an area totaling roughly 770,000 square miles. A proposed sanctuary would complement existing conservation efforts; provide additional protection for these important, fragile, and productive areas; and catalyze additional opportunities to advance research, monitoring, and education programs. It would further engage communities around the Pacific and the world about the incredible natural, cultural, and historic resources and connections found here.
Commercial Fishing
NOAA and the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council have managed fishing activities in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone around the Pacific Remote Islands since 1987 through fishery management plans authorized under the Magnuson-Stevens Act. These plans contribute to the conservation and abundance of the marine resources in the Pacific Remote Islands while providing for responsible and sustainable fishing opportunities. Although the waters of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument are now closed to commercial fishing, non-commercial fishing is allowed, except within 12 nautical miles of emergent land, unless authorized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Beyond 12 nautical miles, NOAA Fisheries regulates non-commercial fishing through a permit system, gear restrictions, and other management measures.
Highly Migratory Species Fishery Areas map from Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission (PSMFC).
Outside of the monument boundary, but within the U.S. EEZ, U.S. longline fishing vessels based in Hawaiʻi and the purse seine fleets based in American Samoa fish for bigeye, yellowfin, and skipjack tuna in the waters around Howland and Baker Islands and Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll. After expansion of the Monument in 2014, on average about 91 percent of the tuna caught in these waters is offloaded in American Samoa to be processed in the Starkist Samoa Tuna Cannery. The cannery is the largest private employer in American Samoa, providing more than 2,600 jobs, which is about 26 percent of the private sector labor force. Between 2015-2021, cannery products (processed tuna and fish meal) accounted for 99 percent of American Samoa export value, nearly $430 million annually (in 2022 dollars). The tuna canning industry provides direct and indirect benefits to other support industries, including subsidizing costs for energy, shipping, and transportation for the territory.
Exploration and Research
The remoteness of this region, and its relative isolation from human impacts, makes the area important for scientific research, exploration, and discovery. Researchers visit the region to map the seafloor, monitor the health of its rich biodiversity, identify new species, and understand how climate change is affecting the area.
This colorful hermit crab shelters amidst the branches of a cauliflower coral (Pocillopora meandrina).
Large table corals make excellent hiding spaces for fish like the blue-lined squirrelfish (Sargocentron tiere) offshore of Baker Island
Whitley's splitfin (Luzonichthys whitleyi), fusilier damselfish (Lepidozygus tapeinosoma), and other species of anthias cloud the waters of Howland and Baker with their sheer numbers while a grey reef shark patrols in the background.
Also in 2023, scientists aboard Ocean Exploration Trust’s Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus spent eight months exploring the Central and Eastern Pacific, mapping unsurveyed seafloor, and characterizing deep-sea habitats, through detailed remotely operated vehicle observation and integrating emerging technologies. The expeditions help close knowledge gaps in our unfolding understanding of the deep sea and seamounts of this area. The expeditions are sponsored by NOAA Ocean Exploration via the NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute, Ocean Networks Canada, the Office of Naval Research, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Expeditions on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer have included mapping and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) dives to explore the seafloor around the Pacific Remote Islands, resulting in the collection of samples and images of the amazing creatures, habitats and unique substrates that exist there. Routes or tracklines for Okeanos Explorer show the paths the ship has taken throughout the Pacific since 2008. From 2015-2017, the CAPSTONE series of expeditions focused on exploring the marine protected areas of the Central and Western Pacific U.S. EEZ.
In 2024, NOAA and partners will build off the CAPSTONE efforts with a new multi-year, multi-partner campaign to address high-priority ocean exploration gaps in the Pacific Islands region.
Each point on the map represents a location of an ROV dive that collected imagery, video, and samples at depth.
Click the dots to access links to all the images, video, and related information collected during each dive.
