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Dependent Archipelagos in the Law of the Sea examines the archipelagic concept in international law of the sea with respect to dependent archipelagos, both coastal and outlying, and evaluates the contribution of state practice to solutions and developments.

The number of non-native plant species established outside of cultivation in the New Zealand archipelago is higher than for any other islands worldwide. Faced with this scale of plant invasions, there has been considerable investment in the scientific and operational aspects of prevention, eradication and control. As a result, New Zealand is ideally placed to illustrate the many challenges that plant invasions present worldwide as well as the possible solutions. New Zealand has been at the forefront of biosecurity policy developments to tackle plant invasions being one of the first countries to: (a) implement national legislation to address the management of non-native plants; (b) establish a national permitted list (white-list) for plant imports; and (c) introduce bans on the sale, distribution, or propagation of non-native plant species. However, these preventative measure are only effective where there are also adequate border inspection regimes, compliance monitoring of the horticulture industry, and surveillance of internet trade. While New Zealand has successfully eradicated several non-native plant species from its territory, the small number of successes reflects the short-term, local and often uncoordinated efforts to manage non-native plants rather than national programmes backed by legislation and financed over several decades. New Zealand supports a world-leading biological control programme, but this has led to sustained, large-scale control for only a handful of species. In natural areas, most management attempts using mechanical or herbicide treatments have failed to achieve control and there has been a progressive reduction in the area, and frequency of these programmes over time. This is illustrative of the challenges facing those responsible for managing non-native plants in any region of the world. A general insight is that a shift in mindset is required that overcomes significant cognitive biases that include succumbing to the pressure to always intervene, underestimating the non-linear trajectories of invasions, failing to articulate the values at stake, and underestimating the time programmes require to succeed. Important lessons of global relevance include the need for managers to: (a) recognise when and where sleeper weeds are likely to become a national issue, especially as a result of climate change; (b) quantify impacts on those values that stakeholders most cherish rather than those that are easy to measure; (c) provide accurate estimates of the potential future extent of the invasion in the absence of management; and (d) identify clear indicators of successful progress over the course of a long-term management programme.

Wilderness areas have been widely discussed in the terrestrial conservation literature, whereas the concept of marine wilderness has received scant attention. The recent move to protect very large areas of the ocean and thus preserve some of the final marine wilderness areas is a bold policy initiative. However, some important questions have remained unanswered, such as whether marine wilderness areas support a different composition and abundance of species than do the smaller marine no-take areas (NTAs) that are steadily dotting our coastlines. We present a case study from the world's largest wilderness coral reef NTA, the Chagos Archipelago, and demonstrate that fish biomass is six times greater than and composition substantially different from even the oldest NTAs in eight other Indian Ocean countries' waters. Clearly, marine wilderness does promote a unique ecological community, which smaller NTAs fail to attain, and formal legislation is therefore crucial to protect these last marine wilderness areas.

Despite a growing body of literature on integrated land–sea management (ILSM), very little critical assessment has been conducted in order to evaluate ILSM in practice on island systems. Here we develop indicators for assessing 10 integrated island management principles and evaluate the performance of planning and implementation in four island ILSM projects from the tropical Pacific across different governance structures. We find that where customary governance is still strongly respected and enabled through national legislation, ILSM in practice can be very effective at restricting access and use according to fluctuations in resource availability. However, decision-making under customary governance systems may be vulnerable to mismanagement. Government-led ILSM processes have the potential to design management actions that address the spatial scale of ecosystem processes and threats within the context of national policy and legislation, but may not fully capture broad stakeholder interests, and implementation may be poorly coordinated across highly dispersed island archipelagos. Private sector partnerships offer unique opportunities for resourcing island ILSM, although these are highly likely to be geared towards private sector interests that may change in the future and no longer align with community and/or national objectives. We identify consistent challenges that arise during island ILSM planning and implementation and offer recommendations for improvement.

The Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean, are an archipelago of volcanic origin which, for decades, has been affected by natural fluoride contamination in the water supply of some of its islands, mainly the island of Tenerife. In addition, recent volcanic eruptions in the archipelago and the increased demand for water supply have led to an increase in the fluoride content in other areas which, historically, were not affected. Fluoride content was determined in 274 water supply samples from the most populated islands of the Canary Islands (Tenerife and Gran Canaria) collected during the months of June 2021 to May 2022. The samples were analysed by fluoride ion selective potentiometry. The highest concentrations in Tenerife were found in the municipalities of Sauzal (7.00 mg/L) and Tegueste (5.39 mg/L), both water samples are over the parametric value of 1.5 mg/L set in the supply water legislation. In the Gran Canaria Island, the highest fluoride levels were found in Valsequillo and Mogán with 1.44 mg/L in both locations, but under the parametric fluoride value abovementioned. Consumption of just 1 L of water per day in the El Sauzal area would result in a contribution rate of 77% for adults and children over 15 years of age (Upper Level value of 7 mg/day) and 108% for children 9–14 years of age (UL value of 5 mg/day). The contribution rates increase considerably, reaching or exceeding 100% of the reference value (UL) with increasing consumption of 1 to 2 L of water per day. Therefore, it is considered that there is a health risk of overexposure to fluoride on the island of Tenerife. In the case of the island of Gran Canaria, it has been shown that even the consumption of 2 litres of water per day does not confer contribution rates that pose a health risk.

Conservation regulations aimed at restricting resource use are commonly used to manage and protect natural resources but their implementation depends on the compliance of resource users. The design of effective regulations should be informed by an understanding of the factors that affect compliance, considering contextual socio-economic information. Changes have been implemented in the national legislation protecting marine turtles in the Cape Verde archipelago, where historical and recent records indicate heavy human predation pressure on nesting and foraging marine turtles. We present an assessment of levels of illegal harvesting and consumption of marine turtle products on two of the islands, Boa Vista and Santiago, and an analysis of their potential drivers. Key stakeholders were interviewed to investigate the perceived impact of the main interventions employed in Cape Verde to reduce illegal harvesting, trade and consumption of marine turtles. Despite an apparent decrease in harvesting and consumption, our results suggest there has been a shift from subsistence harvesting to trade in Boa Vista. The existence of laws to protect marine turtles was perceived as a deterrent to harvesting, and awareness campaigns and a lack of availability were perceived as reasons for the decrease in consumption in Boa Vista and Santiago, respectively. Aiming to inform ongoing discussions, we recommend a multi-targeted approach focusing on both suppliers and consumers to magnify conservation effectiveness. Regular impact evaluation focusing on harvest and consumption is needed to improve the design of regulations and inform policy decision making.

A long-term trophic development of three geographical transects—including a river mouth, an estuary, and an archipelago—were studied in the southern Finnish coast in the Baltic Sea. Each transect was studied to clarify how far off the coast the land-based nutrient sources (catchment factor, CF) had a decisive role in shaping the wintertime regimes of dissolved inorganic nitrogen and dissolved inorganic phosphorus and where the marine processes (marine factor, MF) start to play a major role. Generally, CF controlled the nutrient regime from the coast to the outer brink of the inner coastal area, after which MF started to dominate. The estuaries exhibited steep vertical nutrient gradients, above which the riverine input dominated the nutrient regime. The extent of the area where CF dominated the nutrient regime was therefore decisively dependent on estuarine stratification, i.e., whether the conclusions were drawn based on the surface layer data, including the riverine impact, or on the data beneath that layer, including the marine impact. This result deviates from the current consensus that the trophic regime of the sea is most directly assessed by the surface layer nutrient content. The estuarine nutrient regime is unrepresentative to that of a typical coastal water body due to the strong land-based impact on the estuary. Therefore, any generalization of the trophic condition of an estuary to represent areas farther off the coast should be done cautiously. The estuaries should also be defined as belonging to transitional waters according to the typology related to European Marine Legislation.

Based on the study of nine atolls of the Tuamotu Archipelago, French Polynesia, this article assesses the anthropogenic disturbances that disrupt atoll island natural dynamics and thereby undermine the ability of these islands to naturally adjust to climate-related pressures. It more specifically investigates to what extent the existing legal framework limits these disturbances. The results show that 20 types of human disturbances occurring in the intertidal, coastal and inland areas contribute to island destabilisation. Land reclamation, sediment extraction from coastal and intertidal areas, coastal developments and engineered protection structures are the main disturbances observed. These disturbances are increasingly occurring on both urban and rural islands. We found that law has failed in regulating these disturbances for various reasons, related to both the content of law (including legal gaps and the lack of atoll-specific legal provisions) and the failure of its implementation, which reflects governance issues. In this context, taking control of human disturbances requires not only strengthening and updating existing legal tools, but also and most importantly creating the enabling conditions for law to be effective, especially through the strengthening of institutions’ capacities and public involvement. Additionally, promoting alternatives to locally carried out sediment mining and encouraging the construction of raised houses would help taking control of human-induced island destabilisation.

Freshwater systems are among the most threatened habitats in the world and the biodiversity inhabiting them is disappearing quickly. The Hawaiian Archipelago has a small but highly endemic and threatened group of freshwater snails, with eight species in three families (Neritidae, Lymnaeidae, and Cochliopidae). Anthropogenically mediated habitat modifications (i.e., changes in land and water use) and invasive species (e.g., Euglandina spp., non-native sciomyzids) are among the biggest threats to freshwater snails in Hawaii. Currently, only three species are protected either federally (U.S. Endangered Species Act; Erinna newcombi) or by Hawaii State legislation (Neritona granosa, and Neripteron vespertinum). Here, we review the taxonomic and conservation status of Hawaii’s freshwater snails and describe historical and contemporary impacts to their habitats. We conclude by recommending some basic actions that are needed immediately to conserve these species. Without a full understanding of these species’ identities, distributions, habitat requirements, and threats, many will not survive the next decade, and we will have irretrievably lost more of the unique books from the evolutionary library of life on Earth.

Today, consumer protection issue is not only a national issue, but it also has become an international issue. Indonesia has had the consumer protection law since 1999 which is expected to protect the interests of consumers in an integrative and comprehensive manner and can be applied effectively in the community. After being applicable for more than 17 years, a number of weaknesses were found that the results were less optimal in consumer protection in Indonesia.On the other hand, since 2007, the ASEAN Committee on Consumer Protection (ACCP) has been established, which aims to notify and exchange information, to resolve cross-border consumer issues, and to increase the capacity of ASEAN communities. Finally, the ASEAN countries established a partnership through the integration of economic sectors in a single market in Southeast Asia, called the ASEAN Economic Community. The advances in information and communication technologies are increasingly pushing for the new techniques of trade transactions, which directly or indirectly affect consumers. Consumer protection aspect also becomes one of the parts included in the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint 2025 (AEC Blueprint 2025). The paper was a conceptual study that used a qualitative analysis of the future of consumer protection law in Indonesia in the era of the ASEAN Economic Community. The analysis results show that the Indonesian Consumer Protection Law still have some weaknesses in the aspects of substance, structure, and legal culture. UUPK (Consumer Protection Law) as the substance of Indonesian consumer protection law requires revisions considering the AEC Blueprint 2025.