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8 Prince Edward Islands: Making marine conservation history M any miles south, in the middle of the vast ocean between South Africa and Australia, lie the uninhabited Prince Edward Islands, teeming with an abundance of bird and marine life, and existing seemingly in idyllic isolation. Remote and removed from the world’s trade routes, there are actually two islands – Marion and Prince Edward – both of which belong to South Africa, annexed in 1946. Yet it wasn’t until the 1960s that research teams first touched down to explore the ragged coastlines and record the biodiversity. Consisting mostly of ferns, grasses and mosses, the islands are situated in a latitudinal belt nicknamed the ‘roaring 40s’as they are known for their high winds. The islands are a haven for millions of seabirds, but one particularly special bird resides here. It lives at the top of the food chain and rules the Southern Ocean airwaves as it glides on the wind thermals with its capably adapted 3-metre wingspan, larger than any other bird on the planet. It is the wandering albatross, a species endemic to the area with 40% of the total population, a monogamous bird majestic in flight and feather and able to fly 2 000 kilometres in a 24-hour period. While one is spotting albatrosses soaring on a slipstream, deep below in the ocean exists another world – an ecosystem of fish and marine life – from the strikingly stunning orcas to the rare and valuable Patagonian toothfish. There was a time when life on the Prince Edward Islands was good, and for those researchers who got to see it for themselves it was a time of primal reflection and appreciation of the wonder of our planet living in harmonious balance and biodiversity. Deon Nel was one such researcher who had the opportunity to live there 20 years ago in 1993. He arrived by ship on the pristine island landscape, dropped off with eight others and armed with supplies to survive for an entire year. As a field officer, his days consisted of observing and counting birds for long population trend analysis, identifying habits, and recording diets and breeding patterns. Deon would sometimes take an eight-day trip around the island, walking and visiting various colonies of albatrosses and penguins and greeting orcas along the way off the rocky cliffs. High winds made these strolls extremely challenging, but for a researcher life was mostly good. By 1996/1997, when democracy in South Africa was in its infancy, Deon returned to complete his PhD on Marion Island. Only this time, the patterns and trends he was noticing were a lot more alarming. Not too far off the coast, visible with the Both images ©Peter Ryan /WWF