UNSULLIED BY HUMANS: U.S. ISLAND IS BIOLOGICAL MOTHERLODE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP08C01297R000300280009-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 14, 2012
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: August 17, 1998
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

11.
- Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/14: CIA-RDP08001297R000300280009-2
Eco
Unsullied by Humans, U.S. Isi
By JO BY WARRICK
Washington Post Staff Writer
It's no accident that Navassa
Island is one of America's most
isolated places. Few spots on Earth
could be more hostile to human
habitation than this slab of jagged,
broiling-hot limestone off the coast
of Haiti.
Christopher Columbus's ship-
mates declared the island worth-
less when they visited briefly in
1504. The first explorers found no
food or -water but an abundance of
scorpions, poisonous plants and
razor-sharp rocks that sliced
through boots and demolished
boats.
For the next five centuries, Na-
vassa remained almost completely
deserted, except for a stint in the
1800s, when it was mined for
guano, or bird manure. Until last
week, not even the U.S. govern-
ment, the titular owner, knew the
island harbored extraordinary
riches?an astonishing wealth of
biologically unique creatures and
plants that have managed to thrive
here, virtually free of human inter-
ference.
The scale of Navassa's riches
came to light last week when a
team of researchers announced the
results of the first scientific expedi-
tion there in more than a century.
Combing every inch of the tiny dot
of an island, the scientists counted
more than 800 species, many of
which are believed to exist no-
where else in the world.
As many as 250 species are
believed to be entirely new to
science, expedition leaders said.
They reported being equally aston-
ished by the condition of the is-
land's coral reefs, which are so
pristine they offer a glimpse of
what the Caribbean may have
looked like before Columbus.
"It was like looking into an
aquarium," said Nina Young, a
scientist with the Washington-
based Center for Marine Conserva-
tion who co-led the expedition.
"Navassa may possess some of the
most pristine and healthy coral
reefs in the U.S.?and perhaps in
the whole Caribbean."
The excitement centers on a
desert island that is barely two
square miles, or about nine times
the size of the National Mall in
Washington. The tip of a sub-
merged mountain, Navassa is 40
miles west of Haiti and 200 miles
from the mainland of the United
States, which claimed Navassa in
1857 under a law that asserted
U.S. sovereignty over any uninhab-
ited island that contained guano, a
valuable fertilizer.
Although it was "discovered" by
Europeans before the North Amer-
ican mainland, Navassa was by-
passed by colonists because of its
lack of fresh water and its excep-
tionally harsh terrain. Steep rocky
cliffs on all sides make Navassa a
natural fortress, unassailable by
wooden landing craft. The Interior
Department, which is responsible
for administering the island, for- .
bids unauthorized visits because of
the dangers posed by the rock-
studded surf.
Navassa's inland areas are only
slightly less treacherous. The 14
government, university and pri-
vate scientists who conducted the
two-week expedition had to slowly
pick their way across a landscape
of jagged, cratered limestone made
blisteringly hot by the Caribbean
sun.
"It was like Swiss cheese or a
honeycomb, but more irregular,"
said Michael Smith, a senior scien-
tist with the Center for Marine
Conservation and the other expe-
dition co-leader. "When you're
walking, you're jumping rim to rim
over the holes."
Besides cuts and scrapes from
sharp rocks, the researchers had to
watch for poisonous critters?
"The island is very rich in scorpi-
ons," Smith noted dryly?and poi-
son ivy-like plants, including the
ubiquitous "poison wood" tree that
soon had most expedition mem-
bers scratching.
But the island's many crevices
and terraces also contained a diver-
sity of life that scientists say is
extraordinary for such a small and
dry place. The 800 terrestrial
plants and animals the researchers
documented on Navassa exceeds
by four times the number previous-
ly believed to be on the island.
Besides feral dogs and goats left
behind by miners and fishermen,
scientists found unique species of
lizards, wingless crickets and other
creatures that had evolved during
eons of isolation. "We've barely
begun to sort through the scientific
specimens," Smith said.
But there were also prominent
absences. The rock iguana, an en-
demic species described by 19th-
century visitors, appears to have
vanished, possibly eaten into ex-
tinction by the 200 guano miners '
who stripped most of the phospho-
rous-rich topsoil off the island's
lower terraces a century ago.
Divers who surveyed the is-
land's reefs found a "spectacular"
richness of creatures ant hues,
said the Center for Marine Conser-
vation's Young. Elkhorn corals and
spiny urchins that have been wiped
out by disease elsewhere in the
Caribbean were healthy and thriv-
ing.
"You're struck by the vibrant
colors," including the deep laven-
ders and reds of sea sponges and
fans in what is perhaps "the best
diving . . . in U.S. waters," Young
said.
But the scientists' enthusiasm
was tempered by concerns about
what may happen after word
spreads of Navassa's pristine rich-
ness. Elsewhere in the Caribbean,
conservationists are trying to pre-
vent further destruction of reefs
that have been blighted by pollu-
tion and disease or damaged by
careless divers and boaters.
The Interior Department, which
co-sponsored the scientific expedi-
tion, must now decide how best to
protect the island against the inevi-
table assault. Possible options in-
clude turning Navassa into a wild-
life refuge or "special management
zone," said Interior Secretary
Bruce Babbitt, who vowed there
would be no repeat here of the
"melancholy record of the coral
reef." -
"I can tell you this doesn't seem
to be the place for a Hilton Hotel or
a resort," Babbitt said. "But we
also don't want to say, 'Here's a
fabulous asset?but you, the own-
ers, aren't allowed to see it.'"
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/14: CIA-RDP08001297R000300280009-2
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- Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/14: CIA-RDP08001297R000300280009-2
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Navassa Is. (U.S.)
Pristine coral reefs like this one, above, greeted the first scientific expedition
to tiny Navassa Island in more than a century. Fourteen researchers who
combed the U.S.-owned Caribbean island found hundreds of tare and unique
species, such as the Navassa anole, below left, a lizard found nowhere else in
the world. Navassa's forbidding coastline and harsh terrain may help protect
the island's wildlife from human interference.
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF CENTER FOR MARINE CONSEH41ION
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