User:Baldwinwt/sandbox

Saint Helena has been a very integral part of man's exploration of the Earth and development of sciences, especially the ecological sciences. When the island was first discovered, it was the most isolated and pristine pieces of land every encountered by humans. This, along with it's relative small size, allowed ecologists to study the affects of man and time with limited variables. Richard Grove, Author of Green Imperialism, along with other essays, explains how imperialist deforestation of Saint Helena made apparent for the first time the devastating affects humans can have on the world around them. Saint Helena Island was famous for the work that Georg Forester and Johann Reignhold Forester performed on the famous Cook Voyage aboard the HMS Resolution. This voyage was the beginning for ecological conservatism. Before any idea of conservatism, there was not only economic factors causing the destruction of Saint Helena, but colonial ideology was behind the mass destruction of tropical landscapes throughout the last 400 years. The Deforestation of Saint Helena by European East India Companies in the 15th and 16th centuries led to one of the first ecological legislation, the St. Helena Forest Act of 1731.

The Forster expedition started the ecological study of Saint Helena, but others have been studying the island since then. Because the island has been extremely affected by human interaction and destruction, scientists have attempted to discern the original vegetal makeup of the island. A scientific study is the only way to determine the original vegetation because there is no direct evidence of plant life from when the island was discovered. One study determined that because the island is volcanic in nature, any plant life existing on the island would have travelled there from elsewhere. It is most likely that the original plant life would have travelled from southern Africa because of the south-easterly prevailing winds and currents.