Cuba edges toward breakdown
| | HAVANA, Cuba, 18 July 2026 (Guardian) - When Cuba’s national grid collapses, as it did for the third time in 10 days on Tuesday, a collective groan spreads across its cities and people wonder, again, whether the island’s antiquated electricity system may soon become unrecoverable. |
They escaped the slave trade to an island in the middle of the ocean
| | COPENHAGEN, Denmark, 17 July 2026 (UCSC) - Saint Helena is a tiny volcanic island more than 1,000 miles off the coast of Africa. Between 1840 and 1863, the British Royal Navy brought nearly 27,000 Africans from captured illegal slave ships to a “Liberated African Establishment” on Saint Helena. UC Santa Cruz researchers helped shed new light on the likely origins within Africa of some of those people who died and were buried on the island. |
Biodiversity fears as hybrid fish integrate into Philippines lake
| | LONDON, UK, 17 July 2026 (Guardian) - Escaped ornamental aquarium fish have integrated into a local ecosystem in the Philippines, but scientists say they may be threatening the native biodiversity of the lake. Flowerhorn cichlids – human-bred hybrid fish prized for their bright-gold colour and prominent head humps – are believed to have escaped from breeding facilities into Lake Sampaloc, which sits in a volcanic crater, during a typhoon. |
Tokelau and PNA react to New Zealand fisheries action
| | MAJURO, Marshall Islands, 17 July 2026 (RNZ) - Tokelau - made up of three atolls with a total population of about 1500 people - benefited hugely from joining a Pacific tuna cartel in 2012. The impact of being part of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) was so significant that revenue generated from its lucrative fishery quickly accounted for as much as 40 percent of the national budget for this non-self-governing territory of New Zealand. But all that came to a halt early this year, when the PNA terminated Tokelau's participation in PNA's Vessel Day Scheme (VDS) that manages the purse seine industry in Pacific waters, where over half the world's tuna is caught. |
Island nations call for packaging redesign to curb ocean plastic
| | ARNHEM, The Netherlands, 17 July 2026 (PI) - Ocean plastic pollution disproportionately affects island nations, which lack the infrastructure and investment to process large amounts of packaging waste. In one modeled scenario of no improvement to global waste management, the researchers estimate that by 2060, there will be 2.8 times more ocean plastic than in 2018. |
Can relationship between San Andres and mainland Colombia improve
| | SAN ANDRES, Colombia, 17 July 2026 (LAR) - On July 4, San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina, the most far off of Colombia’s 32 departments, elected a new governor in special elections. The outgoing acting governor hopes that more attention will be brought to the needs of the community on the islands, and she remains hopeful that relations between the archipelago and Colombia’s national government will improve. |
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CBD |
 | | COP16 21 Oct-1 Nov, 2024, Cali, Colombia |
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UNFCCC |
| | COP29 11-22 November, 2024, Baku, Azerbaijan |
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ISLAND DYNAMICS |
| | DARKNESS II conference, 20-23 January 2025, Nuuk, Greenland |
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JICAS |
| | Islands And Island Studies conference 3-7 June, 2025, Jersey, Channel Islands |
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UNITED NATIONS |
| | UN Ocean Conference 9-13 June, 2025, Nice, France |
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UPEI |
| | 3rd international conference on SIS and SNIJs 16-20 June, 2025, Charlottetown, PEI |
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ARCTIC COUNCIL |
| | UArctic Congress 26-29 May 2026, Torshavn, Faroe Islands |
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SICRI |
| | Island Studies International Conference 25-28 June, 2026, Tacloban City, Leyte Islands, Philippines |
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ISISA |
| | 20th Islands of the World Conference 7-11 July 2026, Shinan County, Jeollanam-do, South Korea |
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SPREP |
| | 11th Pacific Islands Conference for Nature Conservation and Protected Areas, 7–11 September 2026, Noumea, New Caledonia |
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ANATOMY OF ISLANDS |
| | 14th Anatomy of Islands symposium 15-17 Oct, 2026, Jelsa, Hvar Island, Croatia |
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SOCIETY OF ISLAND BIOLOGY |
| | 5th Island Biology conference 2-6 November, 2026, Atami City, Japan |
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IWRA |
| | 2nd Islands Water Congress 9-11 Dec, 2026, Montego Bay, Jamaica |
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