Nature Features

The five islands of Scilly are unique in many ways but also share qualities with some of the world's tiniest inhabited islands.

At this two day conference delegates from the Galapagos Islands, Tiritiri Matanga in New Zealand, The Falklands, The Navarino Islands in Chile and The Carteret Islands of Papua New Guniea explained the pressures they face due to climate change. Human activities which attribute to global warming are also being discussed.

Mike Tetley singing with local children

One speaker, Ursula Rakova is co-ordinating the safe and smooth voluntary relocation and resettlement of the islanders on Carteret. Her islands are no more than 1.2m above sea level and amongst the first to have to be evacuated by a government due to climate change.

Fresh from the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth Felipe Cruz from the Galapagos Islands spoke about his work for the Charles Darwin Foundation.

Felipe has devoted a lot of time to building and supervising the team of hunters working on the eradication of goats from Pinta Island; pigs, donkeys and goats from Santiago Island; and goats and donkeys from Isabela Island.

Islanders on Scilly have been busy trying to lower their energy consumption. The experiment is designed to see if the community, the island's school and families can reduce their electricity demand compared to the rest of the UK.

Islanders are monitoring their electricity usage

Students at the 5 Islands School have been monitoring their electricity usage. They've discovered that in the winter the school uses about 30 kilowatts of electricity at any one moment in time which is the same as leaving about 30 kettles switched on. In summer, when fewer lights are needed this figure drops to about 20 kilowatts. 

Delegates at the Earth Summit on the Isles of Scilly say it's been a huge success. People from Islands all over the world believe the extreme weather conditions they often face due to climate change have been highlighted. They now hope everyone will try to reduce their energy consumption to help them.