Three decades of work add up to an immeasurable number of positive impacts for the planet.

A lot can happen in thirty years. In 1994, Amazon.com was officially launched and has now grown into an e-commerce powerhouse; The pilot episode of Friends released and has transcended generations as one of the most iconic American sitcoms of all time. This is also the year Island Conservation started as an idea by University of California, Santa Cruz professors Don Croll and Bernie Tershy after witnessing the impacts of invasive species on islands in Mexico first-hand while conducting their seabird research. 

Thirty years ago, the two professors (then grad students) saw invasive rats were eating native seabird eggs, resulting in near- ecosystem collapse. They traveled to islands expecting them to be full of seabirds and instead – they were full of invasive rats. They set off on a mission to remove invasive species from islands to bring back their beloved seabirds. The results were dramatic as they witnessed island ecosystems recovering first-hand.  

Over the last thirty years, we’ve continued this work and  witnessed not just seabirds coming back, but the cascading benefits they bring with them. We have seen communities flourish with improved food security, coral reef and marine ecosystems bounce back from near-collapse, innovation change the game for island restoration around the globe, and so much more.  

Let’s take a look at what we’ve accomplished in the last thirty amazing, incredible, impactful, and wildly fulfilling years:

Anacapa Island

In 1999, the first U.S. project kicked off on Anacapa Island, Channel Islands in California where thousands of birds nest because of its historical lack of predators. However, invasive rats were brought to Anacapa Island in the 1940s via ships, causing havoc for native birds and the island ecosystem. As the first project of its kind in the U.S., the restoration of Anacapa Island helped the native birds avoid ‘endangered’ listing. The removal of the invasive rats had an almost instantaneous effect, with Scripps’s Murrelet population rebounding to over 90% almost immediately.  

Learn more about the Anacapa Island project >> 

Palmyra Atoll

In 2004, we officially began our journey on Palmyra Atoll, a TNC (The Nature Conservancy) preserve and research station within a US Fish and Wildlife Service National Wildlife Refuge and further protected—out to 50 nautical miles—by the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, the largest swath of ocean and islands protected under a single jurisdiction in the world. Palmyra Atoll is of global significance for ocean, small island and coral reef research—especially in the face of climate change. It is one of the only marine environments that is spectacularly intact and offers TNC’s research facilities to enable discoveries with application far beyond Palmyra.

However, invasive rats had found their way to Palmyra and were severely affecting seabirds, native crabs, and plant populations. In partnership with TNC and the USFWS, we launched a holistic restoration project to protect Palmyra by removing invasive species and accelerating the return of native plants and animals. In the absence of invasive rats, scientists documented a 5000% increase in native trees, two new crab species, an increase in seabirds, and a species of mosquito eradicated as a result of this project. 

Learn more about the Palmyra Atoll project >> 

Lehua Island 

In 2006, Lehua, Hawaiʻi was officially declared free of invasive rabbits, with the announcement of a rat-free island coming in 2021. With the island free of invasive vertebrates, it is once again a safe haven for threatened and endangered Hawaiian seabirds. At least 17 seabird species, many of which are threatened, call Lehua home. During prime summer nesting season, hundreds of thousands of birds may be on Lehua at any given time, making it one of the largest and most diverse seabird colonies in the main Hawaiian Islands. With connector species once again able to thrive, we look forward to witnessing the changes in the ecosystem as a whole.  

Learn more about the Lehua Island project >> 

Hawadax Island 

In 2012, following the successful removal of invasive rats in 2008, Native Aleut people successfully petitioned for the renaming of Rat Island back to the original name, Hawadax Island. Thanks to the work of Island Conservation, conservation partners, and the local community, the island is now known as a nesting ground for a wide variety of seabirds, including the Tufted Puffin—which had previously not been seen there for almost 200 years.  

Learn more about Hawadax Island recent success >> 

Pinzón Island 

Island Conservation and partners restored Pinzón Island in the Galapagos in 2013 by removing a primary threat – invasive rats. Not long after, the Pinzón Giant Tortoise was down-listed from ‘extinct in the wild’ to ‘vulnerable’ as a result of the rat-removal project. The Pinzón Giant Tortoise couldn’t breed in the wild for over 150 years due to rats, so the tortoises’ eggs would be collected for the chicks to be raised in captivity. They were kept in captivity until they reached a size large enough to defend themselves against these invasive predators. This process was both costly and inefficient, whereas removing rats immediately stopped the threat allowing young hatchlings to thrive all over the island.  

Learn more about the restoration project >>  

Rábida Island 

In 2013, Island Conservation biologists make two unexpected discoveries when monitoring Rábida Island: a gecko species that was thought to be extinct and a new species of snail.  

Learn more about these remarkable milestones in the Galápagos >> 

Tonga 

In 2015, Island Conservation worked with local and regional partners to implement the first invasive species removal in Tonga. Not long after, the restoration projects on Malinoa and Motutapu Islands were officially declared a success. And in 2023, we were proud to share that Late Island in the Kingdom of Tonga stands as potentially the largest island in the Pacific to have been cleared of invasive rats, setting a remarkable benchmark for similar endeavors across the globe and resulting in an abundance of benefits for people and planet.  

Learn more about our recent work in the Kingdom of Tonga >> 

Kayangel Island

In 2018, Island Conservation worked alongside the local community and partners to protect food supplies, livelihoods and native wildlife on Kayangel Atoll, Palau. After a shipwreck in the 1980’s, introduced rats began to proliferate at an alarming rate, causing severe damage to important crops, including corn, taro, and coconut, by consuming or spoiling them before they could be harvested. The undertaking of this project was a mammoth effort, but one that was well worth it to improve food security for the people who call Kayangel home.  

Island Conservation Project Manager, Tommy Hall, shares his day-to-day fieldwork on Kayangel, Palau in his rendition of Field Notes >> 

Chañaral Island

In recent years, we’ve seen the Peruvian Diving-petrels, an endangered seabird population, flourish once again on Chañaral Island, Chile after decades of decline. This was once the world’s largest population of the Peruvian Diving-petrels, but invasive species destroyed them, pushing the species to endangered. Today, thanks to the removal of invasive species and social attraction tools to bring seabirds back, the birds have been down-listed and are nesting there with a growing population for the first time in 40 years. Aside from this significant milestone, Scientists have also spotted signs of a healthy ecosystem re-surging: barren landscapes have been replaced by fields of flowers and 16 species of plants never before recorded on the island have been identified – including three species never seen before in the Reserve. 

Learn more about the recent milestone in the Humboldt Penguin National Reserve, Chile >> 

Island-Ocean Connection Challenge 

In 2022, Island Conservation, Re:wild and Scripps Institution of Oceanography launched the Island-Ocean Connection Challenge. Now over 20 partners deep, the coalition aims to restore at least 40 globally significant island-ocean ecosystems from ridge to reef by 2030 to benefit people, wildlife and our planet.  

Learn more about the Island-Ocean Connection Challenge >> 

Innovation 

At Island Conservation, we believe in harnessing the potential of modern technology to advance our conservation efforts. In recent years, we launched our Drone Program which has already resulted in new levels of efficiency and scalability for our projects. We have utilized the power of drones to increase our number of projects by 67%, are employing them in species monitoring, and are now working to see how we can pair them with cutting-edge imaging to classify animals more efficiently. 

Learn more about how we are using drones to revolutionize island restoration >> 

These are moments in time and accomplishments we are extraordinarily proud of. But our work goes beyond this, and though we can hardly believe it ourselves, we have succeeded in many more small and big ways. Now, we’re stepping into a new era of island restoration – with significant goals around measuring the multiple benefits of island restoration, implementing accelerated recovery efforts, and fostering innovation.  

We acknowledge that we could not have gotten this far without our supporters who have been lifting us up and cheering us on along the way. It takes a team to make this kind of impact, and we’re grateful to have dedicated, passionate people in our Island Conservation family. 

We’re thirty, and though most have matured out of asking for birthday gifts at this point, we would be remiss if we didn’t let you know what was on our birthday list. Celebrate thirty years of success stories for the planet with us by becoming a donor today or sharing this article with a friend.

Cheers to the next thirty years!