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The recorded flora of the raised phosphatic limestone island of Nauru in the equatorial Pacific Ocean consists of approximately 493 species. Only 59 are possibly indigenous, none of which are endemic. The balance is composed of ornamentals, weedy exotics, food plants, and a limited number of other useful cultigens. Twelve of the recorded species are either extinct or were never successfully established on Nauru. Long human settlement, expansion of coconut monoculture during the colonial period, widespread destruction during World War II, and almost a century of open-cast phosphate mining, have led to serious vegetation degradation, disturbance, and displacement

Agroforestry, the planting and protection of trees and tree like plants as integral components of a polycultural agricultural system, has always been central to the economic, cultural and ecological stability of the Kiribati society. This paper focuses on Kiribati agroforestry, and on the role trees play as: 1) integral components of polycultural agricultural systems; 2) symbols of stability and cultural wellbeing; 3) sources of a diverse range of subsistence and commercial products, the imported substitutes for which would be either too expensive or unavailable to most people; and 4) ecologically important components of agricultural systems which, if lost, would lead to irreversible environmental degradation and resultant cultural deterioration. Two islands of Kiribati, Tarawa and Abemama serve as case studies of Kiribati village- level agroforestry. The findings are based on a ten-day reconnaissance survey of agroforestry on Tarawa and Abemama in 1984, a subsequent visit in early 1989, and a survey of the available literature.

The Man and the Biosphere (MAB) programme of UNESCO, first thought of in 1968, launched in 1970 and endorsed by the Stockholm Conference of 1972, includes a number of scientific projects, of which No. 7 is devoted to the Ecology and Rational Utilization of Island Ecosystems. All the programmes are to be interdisciplinary and intergovernmental. Among member countries which developed their own national plans within the framework of the separate MAB projects, France drafted a vigorous one in MAB 7 in French Polynesia, under the leadership of Dr. B. Salvat (1977). The French programme includes a detailed study of an atoll, Takapoto in the Tuamotus, and comparison of its ecosystems and their functioning with those of a high island already under scrutiny, Moorea in the Society Islands.