Paradise Lost: Inside abandoned Australian holiday island resorts
| | NEW YORK, US, 28 February 2026 (US SUN) - Cyclone ravaged resorts abandoned by their billionaire owners are plaguing Australia’s paradise coast as the tropical rainforrest reclaims the wreckage. Many holiday retreats built on the pristine islands off Australia's north east coast are now just eerie piles of destroyed glass and steel. |
Thousands of dead puffins are washing up on Europe's beaches
| | LANCASTER, UK, 27 February 2026 (Conversation) - February 2026 has seen thousands of dead seabirds washing up along the coastlines of the UK, France, Spain and Portugal. There’s evidence that these “wrecks” (where large numbers of seabirds are found along beaches) are becoming increasingly common because of climate change. Worse still, these dead birds – including Atlantic puffins and European shags – only tell a fraction of the story. Many more are likely to have been lost out in the stormy open ocean. |
Why Trump means the Cuban Revolution faces its biggest threat yet
| | LONDON, UK, 27 February 2026 (BBC) - Trump has declared that "Cuba is ready to fall", intensifying pressure on the island at its most vulnerable moment since the Cold War. Some commentators have said one of the aims of Washington's removal of Maduro in Venezuela was to deepen Cuba's economic crisis. It appears the Trump administration hopes to weaken the revolution – possibly terminally – and push for the collapse of state-run socialism on the island. |
A Bitcoin baron wants to build a libertarian paradise on Nevis island
| | NEW YORK, US, 26 February 2026 (NYT) - In 2024, Janice Daniel-Hodge received a call from a real estate agent on the Caribbean island of Nevis. Would she be interested in selling her late father’s land? She was. Her father was the first premier, or leader, of the island after St. Kitts and Nevis gained independence from Britain in 1983. His estate included 25 acres on Nevis’s undeveloped south, and Ms. Daniel-Hodge signed an agreement to sell the land at some future date. |
Why farmers are using Etna's ash as fertiliser
| | LONDON, UK, 26 February 2026 (Guardian) - In the Sicilian town of Giarre overlooking Mount Etna, Andrea Passanisi, a tropical and citrus fruits producer, uses an unusual fertiliser on his 100-hectare (247-acre) stretch of land: volcano ash. |
Bridge or tunnel linking Mull and mainland to be considered
| | LONDON, UK, 25 February 2026 (BBC) - Bridges, tunnels or causeways could link the Isle of Mull to the Scottish mainland in the future, after a Scottish government paper suggested a formal consultation on the idea. The National Islands Plan calls for "detailed appraisals" to be carried out about setting up three new fixed links across Scotland. These would go between Mull and the mainland, Barra and the Uists and the Uists and Harris/Lewis. |
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SIDS |
 | | 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing States 27-30 May 2024, Antigua and Barbuda |
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NAF |
| | North Atlantic Forum bi-annual international conference 17-21 June, 2024, Connemara, Ireland, |
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IWRA |
| | 1st Islands Water Congress 4-6 Sept, 2024, Torshavn, Faroe Islands |
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ANATOMY OF ISLANDS |
| | 12th Anatomy of Islands symposium 26-28 Sept, 2024, Jelsa, Hvar Island, Croatia |
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CIS |
| | Critical Island Studies 4th international conference 3-4 Oct, 2024, Manila, Philippines |
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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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ISISA |
| | 20th Islands of the World Conference 7-11 July 2026, Shinan County, Jeollanam-do, South Korea |
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