Guano mining left Lady Elliot Island a barren wasteland. Now it's a tropical oasis
Lady Elliot Island, once devastated by 19th-century guano mining, has been successfully rehabilitated into a thriving tropical ecosystem. The restoration effort involved extensive manual planting to restore the island's original biodiversity.
Why it matters
It serves as a successful case study for ecological restoration and the long-term impacts of industrial resource extraction.
Link copied Share Share article Lady Elliot island has been rehabilitated by hand, with more than 20,000 plants. ( Supplied ) For thousands of years the tiny island at the southernmost tip of the Great Barrier Reef was alive with cacophonous birdsong.
But within a decade of guano miners arriving in force with their picks and shovels in the 1860s, Lady Elliot Island was silent, denuded of all foliage and bereft of the seabirds that once lived there.
It remained a barren wasteland for more than 100 years before one family decided to revive it and started planting trees.
The cotton-wool clouds separate to reveal the first glimpse of Lady Elliot Island.
A ring of waves crashes on the outer edge of the reef, and the island's airstrip is a prominent ribbon of jade encased in forest green.
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