Ringgold Islands

The Ringgold Islands are a group of islands northeast of Vanua Levu . They belong geographically to the Fiji Islands and politically to the island republic of Fiji , more precisely to the province of Cacaudrove, district of Laucala. The largest island is Quelelevu, also called Naqelelevu. Only two islands are inhabited: Quelelevu and the island of Yanuca, which is part of the Budd Reef. The archipelago is named after Lieutenant Commander (later Rear Admiral ) Cadwallader Ringgold (1802–1867), commander of the USS Porpoise , a ship of the United States Exploring Expedition led by Charles Wilkes .

geography

The Ringgold Islands not only form the northeastern extension of the Fiji group, but they are also the easternmost archipelago of Melanesia . At the eastern end of the island of Qelelevu there is a 27 m high lighthouse in steel frame construction, which marks the extreme northeast corner of the Fiji archipelago. The group of Ringgold Islands includes atoll islands ( Motu ) made of coral sand and debris as well as three upscale atolls : Quelelevu, Tauraria and Taininbeka. The circular, densely overgrown island of Cobia is of volcanic origin, the remnant of a volcanic crater, the northeast side of which is open to the sea.

The Ringgold Islands are in the area of ​​tropical cyclones. In March 2010, cyclone Tomas caused considerable damage on Quelelevu.

Islands

• Cakau Matacucu (uninhabited)
• Nanuku Levu (uninhabited)
• Nukubalati and Nukupureti, also Nukubasaga or Nukumbasaga (uninhabited)
• Qelelevu or Naqelelevu, also Nggelelevu (inhabited)
• Tauraria and Taininbeka, also Tui-ni-beka, uninhabited side islands of Quelelevu
• Vetauua (uninhabited)
• Raranitiqa (uninhabited)
• Tovuka (uninhabited)
• Cacau Vucovuco, also Vucovuco (uninhabited)
• Nukusemanu (uninhabited)
• Cobia (uninhabited)
• Yanuca, also Yanuka-ni-beka (inhabited)
• Yavu (uninhabited)
• Maqewa, also Manggewa (uninhabited)
• Beka (uninhabited)
• Mota Levu (uninhabited)

The Budd, Nukusemanu and Heemskercq (also Heemskerk) reefs are subgroups of the Ringgold Islands.

flora

Most of the smaller islands have scrubby, more or less closed bush vegetation, with little biodiversity. So far there has only been one empirical study of the flora of the Ringgold Islands, the focus of which is on Quelelevu Island. Arthur Whistler, Professor of Biology at the University of the South Pacific , distinguishes four vegetation zones:

Beach zone

The beach zone comprises a narrow strip of terrain that directly adjoins the beaches. Here one finds the Apocynaceae scoring Neisosperma oppositifolium , frequent in the South Pacific Pisonia grandis , Guettarda speciosa , also to the Cook Islands and Samoa is widespread, and as a pioneer plant, the beach winds Ipomoea pes-caprae .

Forest region

In the wooded region to the center of the island, bushes and low-growing trees, adapted to the calcareous soils , dominate . An open, mesophytic forest has emerged with the most common species: Dysoxylum richii , the ebony tree Dyospyros samoensis , Mammea odorata and various species of figs ( Ficus sp.).

Mangrove forest

Some coastal areas and the shores of three small brackish lakes - two in the southern and one in the western area of ​​Quelelevu - are densely overgrown with mangrove forest. The dominant species are: Rhizophora mucronata , Bruguiera gymnorrhiza and Xylocarpus granatum .

Ruderal vegetation

Erosion processes on the island of Quelelevu have led to the emergence of "Talasiqa" (spoken: Talasinga, a Fiji expression for sun-burned land), which are semi-arid areas as a result of extensive slash and burn in the early history of the island. In other areas, secondary vegetation has spread. Among the now occurring there plants are planted by humans coconut palm ( Cocos nucifera ), Glochidion concolor , Dendrocnide harveyi and robust grass species such as Sporobolus indicus and fountain grass Pennisetum polystachyum .

fauna

In 1984 Fergus Clunie, former director of the Fiji Museum in Suva , explored the island of Quelelevu with the secondary islands of Tauraria and Taininbeka and documented a significant population of seabirds with breeding colonies. The most common species were red-footed boobies ( Sula sula ), white-bellied boobies ( Sula leucogaster ) and noddis ( Anous stolidus ).

Humpback whales are found in the waters around the Ringgold Islands. Hawksbill sea turtles ( Eretmochelys imbricata ) and green sea turtles ( Chelonia mydas ) lay their eggs on some uninhabited islands .

history

Early history

The archaeological exploration of the Ringgold Islands has so far been limited to an expedition led by Christophe Sand from the “Institut d'archéologie de la Nouvelle-Calédonie et du Pacifique”, which included the island of Quelelevu as well as the island of Cikobia. Sand divides early history into three phases:

Early settlement phase

The initial settlement probably took place in the early first millennium BC, as can be seen from an archaeological horizon that dates back to 785 BC. Was dated, may assume. The settlement was created in the southwest of the island in a sheltered place near the beach on the lagoon side . She had access to the fishing grounds and garden land. The Nasavuti burial site near the settlement was investigated. There were tombs with low walls made of unprocessed limestone blocks, very similar to the tombs on the island of Futuna . So far, no similar forms of burial have been observed on any other Fiji island. This suggests early, direct contacts between Quelelevu and the approximately 600 km northeast of Futuna.

Middle phase

The settlement areas were still in the immediate area of ​​the coast, but an expansion of the agricultural areas with traces of extensive cultivation can be proven. The settlers have cleared large areas of limestone and built protective walls from them to limit and protect the fields from the wind. The excavation results indicate a long lasting, radical transformation of the environment. This suggests a rapid population growth, with a much higher population density than today.

Late prehistoric phase

The discovery of wall remnants, trenches and platforms built from unprocessed limestone blocks in the fortified area of ​​Nukusewe, in the center of the island of Quelelevu, suggests extensive, armed conflicts in this period of the island's history.

Discovery story

The Dutch navigator Abel Tasman explored the sea area of ​​the Fiji Islands with the ships Heemskerk and Zeehaen from February 5 to 8, 1643. He also discovered the Ringgold Islands for Europe, but without going ashore there. The map by Thomas Jefferys from 1776 (Chart containing the greater part of the South Sea to the South of the Line), published by Sayer and Bennett, London, shows the Ringgold Islands - rather imprecisely - under the name "Heemskirk" s Shoals ”.

It is possible, as Dr. Jennifer Gall of the National Library of Australia claims that William Bligh after the mutiny on the Bounty in crossing the Fiji Islands in the dinghy the Bounty has the Ringgold Islands, at least the small island of Mota Levu seen. It is recorded on Bligh's hand-drawn map under the name "East Island".

The archipelago is named after Lieutenant Commander (from 1866 Rear Admiral) Cadwallader Ringgold, commander of the USS Porpoise , a ship of the United States Exploring Expedition (USEx.Ex) under the direction of Charles Wilkes. The USEx.Ex. was a demanding multitasking company to develop the Pacific and Antarctic . It consisted of six ships, which gave Wilkes the opportunity to send out individual ships for separate ventures. In April 1840 Ringgold received the order to explore the eastern Fiji Islands with the Porpoise and to search for the missing crew of a wrecked ship. Ringgold had an exact map drawn of the sea area crossed.

In 1924, the Whitney South Sea Expedition , led by Rollo Beck and Leonard C. Sanford, visited some of the Ringgold Islands with the schooner France to collect bird hides and plant samples for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City . As the research results were only published in part, it is no longer possible to determine which islands Beck and Sanford visited.

literature

Alexander Agassiz : The Islands and Coral Reefs of Fiji. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Volume 33, Harvard College, Cambridge (MA) 1899 (contains a description of the Budd reefs with the island of Cobia)

Individual evidence

1. ^ W. Arthur Whistler: Botanical Survey of the Ringgold Islands, Fiji . In: Allertonia 11, 2012, pp. 1–28
2. ^ Fergus Clunie: Seabird nesting colonies of the Ringgold Islands. In: Domodomo - The Scholarly Journal of the Fiji Museum No. 3, 1985, pp. 90-109
3. ^ Fergus Clunie: Birds of the Fiji Bush . Fiji Museum 1984
4. ↑ M. Boyle: Sea Turtles of Fiji: Aspects of population biology and conservation implications of harvesting. University of Otago, New Zealand, 1998
5. ↑ Christophe Sand, Frederique Valentin et al .: At the border of Polynesia: archaeological research in the East Fijian islands of Cikobia and Naqelelevu. In: Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association Bulletin, The Malacca Papers, Volume 4 (20)
6. ↑ Christophe Sand, Frederique Valentin et al .: Report and preliminary analysis of the first archaeological survey of Naqelelevu Atoll, Northeast Fiji. In: The Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 116, No. 4 (December 2007), pp. 407-432
7. ^ Andrew Sharp: The Discovery of the Pacific Islands. Greenwood Press, Westport (CT) 1960, p. 85
8. ↑ Jennifer Gall: In Bligh's Hand: Surviving the Mutiny on the Bounty. The National Library of Australia, Canberra 2010, ISBN 978-0-642-27705-3 , p. 95
9. ^ John Dunmore: Who's Who in Pacific Navigation. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1991, p. 205

Coordinates: 16 ° 30 ′ 10 ″  S , 179 ° 41 ′ 20 ″  W