Emeritus Professor Angela Arthington visited the Island in 2025. She consulted widely with residents and experts including CSIRO – including Society President Margaret Christian – about the freshwater resources of the Island and coordinated the preparation of a scientific paper which was published in February 2026 in the prestigious international journal Frontiers in Environmental Science. The full citation is:
Arthington A.H., Christian M., Coyne P., Edwards G., Greenwood D., Mills K., Petheram C., Prior S. and Vanderzalm J.L. (2026). “Norfolk Island’s freshwater ecosystems: a case history and exemplar of freshwater biodiversity inventory, threat assessments, ecological recovery and conservation planning.” Front. Environ. Sci., 19 February 2026 Sec. Freshwater Science Volume 13 – 2025. The paper is available free of charge online (open access) from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2025.1688368.
The DOI reference is https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2025.1688368. (DOI references are enduring links to scholarly articles via an international registry). Co-authors marked in red are current residents of the Island.
Abstract
Norfolk Island is a small remote island in the Southwest Pacific Ocean distinguished by its volcanic origins, topographic, pedological and hydrological complexity, and endemic biodiversity. This review presents Norfolk Island as a case history and exemplar of freshwater biodiversity inventory, threat assessments, ecological recovery and conservation planning on a neglected Pacific Island. It makes the case that the procedural steps and learnings of this review can be applied to the recovery and conservation of freshwater biodiversity and ecosystems of any island, but especially islands in the Pacific Ocean. The review collates information on the biodiversity of the island’s freshwater ecosystems and the processes that threaten them, for the first time. It finds that Norfolk Island’s freshwater biodiversity is patchily documented and seriously threatened by water quality issues, habitat disturbance, introduced species (woody weeds, aquatic plants, freshwater snails and live-bearing fishes) and a drying climate. The review sets out methods and options for restoring Norfolk Island’s creek and wetland habitats in conjunction with planning to protect and conserve freshwater biodiversity and threatened species at catchment scale based on ecological principles and systematic conservation planning. These methods and recovery options can guide similar investigation and restoration/conservation actions on other islands, but especially islands in the Pacific Ocean. The paper calls for a program of comparative Pacific Island freshwater science, management and conservation, similar to the procedural steps and processes presented for Norfolk Island, to protect unique repositories of freshwater species that risk being lost forever.
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