Bermuda

The important indigenous insect population is made up of more than 1,100 species, 41 of which are endemic. The endemic vegetation of the Bermuda Islands includes 11 species of flowering plants, 4 species of fern, 2 species of moss, 10 species of lichens and 40 species of mushrooms.

The marine fauna and flora of Bermuda is largely derived from and closely resembles that of the Caribbean. It represents what can be described as the northernmost outpost of the Caribbean coral reef ecosystem. The Bermuda platform forms approximately 1,000 km² of shallow marine habitats on the flattened top of an extinct volcano. A variety of marine habitats are represented on Bermuda. Coral reefs ring the platform creating an atoll-like lagoon which supports seagrass meadows, soft bottom communities and limited mangrove forests.

Bermuda also has extensive cave systems which have largely been drowned by sea level rises following the ice ages. These caves are home to a very large proportion of Bermuda’s endemic biodiversity. 80 out of 86 species identified in Bermuda’s caves are endemic, including two new orders of crustaceans, one new family and 15 new genera. Some 25 of these species are critically endangered. Read more

 

Nonsuch Island, Bermuda archipelago

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When the first settlers arrived in the 17th century, the terrestrial vegetation of Bermuda was dominated by dense forests of 3 endemic trees and about 150 native plants. In the late 1940s the Nonsuch Island of Bermuda was virtually deforested by the cedar blight, and non-endemic trees replaced them. Since 1951 extensive reintroduction efforts, know as the Living Museum, have been carried out.

 

The restoration of Nonsuch Island, to represent pre-colonial Bermuda’s environment, into the “Living Museum” is one of the first island restoration efforts of its kind. It was inspired by the “discovery” on adjacent but smaller islands of 7 breeding pairs of the supposedly extinct endemic petrel or Cahow in 1951. Nonsuch Island lies within Castle Harbour, St. Georges, a World Heritage site in Bermuda's archipelago and covers 5.9 hectares. Over the past five decades, thousands of endemic and native plants were transported and planted on Nonsuch Island to create native upland forest, upland valley, coastal hillside, mangrove, saltmarsh, beach, dune, as well as fresh and saltwater ponds. By 1990, the new forest comprising of the three endemic trees, the Bermuda Cedar, Olivewood Bark and Bermuda Palmetto, several endemic flowering plants and a suite of native species, had progressed to the stage where successful self-propagation of many species had begun.

 

* Bermuda is an EU Overseas Country and Territory (OCT) because it is placed on Annex II of the European Commission (EC) Treaty (and will be on a similar annex to the EU Constitution), but does not fall under the scope of the OCT Decisions that the Council takes every 10 years, at its own request. The territory is therefore not subject to the Overseas Association Decision implementing Part IV of the EC Treaty. Bermuda is however entitled to participate in the Partnership Meetings involving British OCT’s.

Europe overseas

Status: EU Overseas Countries and Territories (the United Kingdom)*
Number of islands: 8 main islands and more than 130 coral islands
Population: 68,265 inhabitants (2010)
Area: 54 km²
Population density: 1,241 inhabitants / km²
GDP/inhabitant: 44,000 € (2004)
Unemployment rate: 2.1 % (2004)
Economic activities: Financial services, tourism industry
Region: Caribbean