Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island (; formerly Lord Howe's Island) is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, part of the Australian state of New South Wales. It lies 600 km (370 mi; 320 nmi) directly east of mainland Port Macquarie, 780 km (480 mi; 420 nmi) northeast of Sydney, and about 900 km (560 mi; 490 nmi) southwest of Norfolk Island. It is about 10 km (6.2 mi) long and between 0.3 and 2.0 km (0.19 and 1.24 mi) wide with an area of 14.55 km2 (3,600 acres), though just 3.98 km2 (980 acres) of that comprise the low-lying developed part of the island. The island is named after Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe.

Along the west coast is a sandy semi-enclosed sheltered coral reef lagoon. The island is home to less than 500 people, most of whom live in the north, while the south is dominated by forested hills rising to the highest point on the island, Mount Gower (875 m, 2,871 ft). The Lord Howe Island Group comprises 28 islands, islets, and rocks. Apart from Lord Howe Island itself, the most notable of these is the volcanic and uninhabited Ball's Pyramid about 23 km (14 mi; 12 nmi) to the southeast of Howe. To the north lies the Admiralty Group, a cluster of seven uninhabited islets. The first reported sighting of Lord Howe Island took place on 17 February 1788, when Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, commander of the Armed Tender HMS Supply, was en route from Botany Bay to found a penal settlement on Norfolk Island. On the return journey, Ball sent a party ashore on Lord Howe Island to claim it as a British possession. It subsequently became a provisioning port for the whaling industry, and was permanently settled in June 1834. When whaling declined, the 1880s saw the beginning of the worldwide export of the endemic kentia palms, which remains a key component of the island's economy. The other continuing industry, tourism, began after World War II ended in 1945. The Lord Howe Island Group is part of the state of New South Wales and is regarded legally as an unincorporated area administered by the Lord Howe Island Board, which reports to the New South Wales Minister for Environment and Heritage. The island's standard time zone is UTC+10:30, or UTC+11 when daylight saving time applies. The currency is the Australian dollar. Commuter airlines provide flights to Sydney, Gold Coast, Newcastle, and Port Macquarie. UNESCO records the Lord Howe Island Group as a World Heritage Site of global natural significance. Most of the island is virtually untouched forest, with many of the plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. Other natural attractions include the diversity of the landscapes, the variety of upper mantle and oceanic basalts, the world's southernmost barrier coral reef, nesting seabirds, and the rich historical and cultural heritage. The Lord Howe Island Act 1981 established a "Permanent Park Preserve" (covering about 70% of the island). The island was added to the Australian National Heritage List on 21 May 2007 and the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. The surrounding waters are a protected region designated the Lord Howe Island Marine Park.

Bioregion Lord Howe Island is part of the IBRA region Pacific Subtropical Islands and is subregion PSI01 with an area of 1,909 ha (4,720 acres). In the WWF ecoregion system, Lord Howe Island constitutes the entirety of the 'Lord Howe Island subtropical forests' ecoregion (WWF ID#AA0109). This ecoregion is in the Australasian realm, and the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome. The WWF ecoregion has an area of 14 km2 (5½ sq. mi).

History

Prehistory Before European discovery and settlement, Lord Howe Island apparently was uninhabited, and unknown to Polynesian peoples of the South Pacific. No evidence to suggest prehistoric human activity has ever been found on Lord Howe Island, even after an extensive archaeological investigation in 1996. In Australian Archaeology Atholl Anderson concluded in 2003 that, "the case for no pre-European settlement on Lord Howe Island is now more compelling than before" and that "the absence of pre-European settlement on Lord Howe Island is not easily explained. At 16 km2 (6¼ sq. mi) it is twice the size of Pitcairn Island and half the size of Norfolk Island, two other remote subtropical islands that were inhabited prehistorically, and it had a biota very similar to that of Norfolk Island."

1788–1834: First European visits

The first reported sighting of Lord Howe Island was on 17 February 1788 by Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, commander of the Armed Tender HMS Supply (the oldest and smallest of the First Fleet ships), which was on its way from Botany Bay with a cargo of nine male and six female convicts to found a penal settlement on Norfolk Island. On the return journey of 13 March 1788, Ball observed Ball's Pyramid and sent a party ashore on Lord Howe Island to claim it as a British possession. Numerous turtles and tame birds were captured and returned to Sydney. Ball named Mount Lidgbird and Ball's Pyramid after himself and the main island after Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe, who was First Lord of the Admiralty at the time. A drawing made in May 1788 by Arthur Bowes Smyth who was the surgeon aboard Lady Penrhyn, a ship of the First Fleet heading for China on its return trip to England. Many names on the island date from this time, and also from May of the same year, when four ships of the First Fleet, HMS Supply, Charlotte, Lady Penrhyn and Scarborough, visited it. Much of the plant and animal life was first recorded in the journals and diaries of visitors such as David Blackburn, Master of Supply, and Arthur Bowes Smyth, surgeon of Lady Penrhyn. Smyth was in Sydney when Supply returned from the first voyage to Norfolk Island. His journal entry for 19 March 1788 noted that:

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