Oil Spill Has Reached Inaccessible Island, a World Heritage Site

The oil spill from the wreck of the “Oliva” has now reached Inaccessible Island, a World Heritage Site and home to one of the world’s most important concentrations of seabirds (Photo: D. Guggenheim)
ABOARD PRINCE ALBERT II: Expedition staff environmental scientist, Claudia Holgate received an email from Tristan da Cunha Department of Conservation director, Trevor Glass indicating that oil from the wrecked freighter “Oliva” had now reached Inaccessible Island, a World Heritage Site.
Like Nightingale Island, the site of the shipwreck, Inaccessible Island is home to an enormous concentration of seabirds, including the Spectacled petrel found nowhere else in the world (approximately 10,000 nesting pairs). It is also the only home of flightless Inaccessible rail which forages along the shoreline and is therefore vulnerable to the impacts of an oil spill. Other seabirds on Inaccessible Island include the endangered Northern Rockhopper penguin, and the Great shearwater. Of a worldwide total of five million nesting pairs of Great shearwaters, four million are concentrated on Nightingale and Inaccessible Islands. The highly endangered Tristan bunting, with only 50 nesting pairs remaining in the world, live exclusively on Nightingale and Inaccessible Islands.
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