Fiji villagers reject plan for 'Pacific ashtray' in beach paradise
| | SYDNEY, Australia, 22 April 2026 (AFP) - An Australian billionaire's plan to burn rubbish for energy in Fiji amounts to "waste colonialism" and risks spoiling a "beach paradise", villagers and the Pacific nation's UN ambassador said. Traditional landowner Inoke Tora boarded a bus to the capital Suva on Tuesday with a petition from villagers opposing the $630 million waste-to-energy incinerator, which is forecast to consume 900,000 tonnes of non-recyclable rubbish each year. |
Indonesia orangutan forest cleared for 'carbon-neutral' packaging firm
| | BANGKOK, Thailand, 22 April 2026 (AFP) - Vast tracts of Indonesian rainforest home to endangered orangutans have been cleared for plantations supplying a maker of "carbon-neutral" packaging, an investigation by AFP and The Gecko Project has found. Pulp and paper firm Asia Symbol has a no-deforestation policy and supplied major companies like Haleon, the British pharmaceutical giant behind household brands Panadol and Sensodyne. But wood from plantations where tens of thousands of hectares of forest were felled - including orangutan habitat - was processed at an Indonesian mill supplying Asia Symbol. |
Zlarin Coral Centre wins top European award
| | ZAGREB, Croatia, 22 April 2026 (CW) - The Croatian Coral Centre Zlarin has been awarded one of Europe’s most prestigious cultural honours, the Europa Nostra Award 2026, in the category of citizen engagement and awareness-raising. Located on the island of Zlarin and managed by the Tvrdava kulture Šibenik, the centre is dedicated to preserving and promoting the island’s long-standing coral harvesting tradition. |
Maldives largest floating solar array at sea
| | MALE, Maldives, 22 April 2026 (BW) - Swimsol's 2.4 MW SolarSea PV array, floating at sea in the Maldives, runs the island of Cheval Blanc Randheli entirely on solar during daylight hours - saving an estimated USD 1.5 million per year in diesel costs as fuel prices climb worldwide. |
In the Strait of Hormuz, an intriguing portrait of its islanders
| | ATLANTA, US, 22 April 2026 (CNN) - Photographer Hoda Afshar has been returning to Iran’s southern islands of Hormuz and Qeshm since 2015, photographing the land, its residents and the invisible, esoteric forces that shape life there - the winds, which locals believe to be powerful entities. |
Push for solar park in Sri Lanka's elephant terrain raises concern
| | HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka, 21 April 2026 (Mongabay) - A state-approved solar energy park in Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka is being developed on the edge of a managed elephant range, or MER, with some land clearances overlapping with elephant ranges. Local communities are protesting the clearing of shrub forests, which are key elephant habitats, a disruption of which can result in the fragmentation of traditional elephant corridors and intensify human-elephant conflict, driving the animals toward villages and farms. |
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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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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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