Soil erosion, overfishing, and urban pollution persist

To help save the reefs of French Polynesia, get active with these groups:

Greenpeace Pacific

Ia Ora te Natura

Tourist Trapped: This reef turtle, mounted with diamond eyes and a black pearl in its mouth, was poached for sale as a trinket to tourists. Photo: Joseph Dougherty/SEE

French Polynesia's legacy of nuclear testing, along with a litany of population- and development-related stresses, continues to damage reefs here. The Society Islands' reefs are affected by extensive mining of coral sand for road-building.

The London Times reported in August 1997 that France was purchasing Tupai atoll, a 2,500-acre coral ring that's part of Tahiti's archipelago. The French intend to build a nature preserve for the atoll's myriad endangered species—and then drop a hotel complex on it for tourism's sake.