The Pitcairn Islands:

• Cover 830,000 square kilometers (320,465 square miles) of ocean.
• Are located halfway between New Zealand and Peru.
• Include a World Heritage site (Henderson Island).
• Are home to about 700 marine species.
• Provide globally important nesting grounds for green turtles and seabirds.
• Host at least 30 species native to the islands, many of which are listed as Endangered or Vulnerable.

The Pitcairn Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean may be small and remote, but their surrounding waters are massive and home to an incredibly diverse and healthy marine ecosystem.

Pitcairn is made up of four islands: Pitcairn, Henderson, Oeno, and Ducie. Pitcairn’s lies 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) from New Zealand, the closest landmass, making it one of the world’s most remote groups of islands.

The islands, a British Overseas Territory, have a total land area of approximately 43 square kilometers (16.7 square miles). Only Pitcairn is inhabited, with a population of 56, the majority of whom are descendents of the mutineers of the British Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty, who with their Tahitian companions settled Pitcairn in 1790. 

But the ocean area surrounding the islands and extending to 200 nautical miles from shore, known as its exclusive economic zone, is vast—just over 830,000 square kilometers (320,465 square miles)—with extraordinarily rich marine life. An estimated 700 marine species are found here, including at least 270 species of fish. 

There are also at least 19 species of plants, five bird species, and five mollusk species are found only in the Pitcairn Islands, and all of them are classified as Endangered or Vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. One of the rarest species, the yellow fautu flower, was thought to be extinct on Pitcairn until it was rediscovered by Pitcairner Carol Warren in 2002. Although the marine area of Pitcairn has been relatively understudied, two of its species of fish are found nowhere else in the world:  the many spined butterfly fish and the Henderson triplefin.

Henderson Island, a World Heritage site, is the most studied island of the Pitcairn group.  It is home to six native bird species, more than 180 species of insects, and 100 species of land-based arthropods—crabs, spiders, and similar species with an external skeleton, a segmented body, and jointed legs. Henderson, an important nesting ground for green turtles, also has globally important seabird populations, particularly the Henderson petrel. This species breeds nowhere else in the world and is particularly threatened by nonnative Pacific rats that prey on their chicks. In some years, Henderson petrel chick populations are reduced by as much as 95 percent because of these rats.