Lord Howe Island is Elysium to Australia’s land down Underworld. Set in the heart of the Tasman Sea, the island is like something out of a dream — buoyant, jade and rife with fauna found nowhere else on Earth. Though Lord Howe (LHI) has been settled since the early 19th century, its ecological makeup has hardly changed at all. That’s because its ecosystem is the centerpiece of a local culture predicated on sustainability.
Nestled between the world’s southernmost barrier reef and its tallest sea stack, Lord Howe is an isle of anomalies. Its ecoregion is unique enough to earn it special classification from the WWF — the “Lord Howe island subtropical forest” — and its volcanic origins are evidenced by vast cliffs and submarine drop-offs. Most notable of all is Mt. Glower, a 2,800-foot alp with a flat peak bathed in cloud forest. Among LHI’s inhabitants are 241 endemic plant species, of which 113 grow exclusively on the island. It’s also home to 1,600 terrestrial insect species including more than 60% found nowhere else on Earth. Among them is the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect, which was declared extinct in 1920, then very much alive in 2001.
85% of LHI is enveloped in native forest, and 70% is protected nature preserve. That leaves just 15% to the island’s 380 human residents, who occupy a tiny sliver of developed land set comfortably on Lord Howe’s western coast. The islanders are acutely aware of the lifestyle afforded to them by their homeland, and live their lives centered around preservation and maintenance: respect “is instilled in instilled in us from a very young age,” Island Board member Darcelle Matassoni told CNN, “because we are stewards of [the] environment.”
In addition to regularly scheduled sustainability programs, Lord Howers derive 80% of their energy from a communal solar grid. They sort their own waste, farm on a small strip of accessible land and have developed a bartering system in lieu of a large-scale economy. The cost of living on the island is daunting, in part because the only imports Lord Howe receives are delivered on a freight ship just twice a month. But LHI’s most iconic sustainability initiative is centered around tourism. Though the isle has entered the limelight as a well-protected paradise-on-Earth, the Island Board makes just 400 beds available to tourists at any given time. That means the island’s population never climbs above 800, though the waitlist for entry currently extends well into 2026. “Nobody likes red tape but everybody understands that it’s all in aid of making sure that we get to keep the lifestyle we have,” said Matassoni. “That we get to keep the natural environment the way it is, that we are all very lucky to be here.”
Lord Howe Island is unsurprisingly difficult to access, and the journey (for one of the lucky 400) begins with a trip to Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (SYD). SYD is the only base offering direct flights to the LHI Airport, which has just one runway and covers a tiny patch just North of the island’s settled area. Upon their arrival, visitors are greeted by trained dogs. These canines aren’t interested in drugs or contraband — their goal is to sniff out invasive species which could have snuck over in luggage or on travelers’s bodies. Once tourists are cleared to enter the island, they are inducted into LHI’s way of life and participate in sustainability programs and ecology-centered tours. Both are led by locals, many of them sixth-, seventh- and even eighth-generation Lord Howers who trace their lineage back to the island’s earliest settlers.
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The Athletic Clubs trades in affability, accountability and overly-active WhatsApp groupsGenerations ago, those citizens petitioned to have LHI listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a status accompanied by both legal protection and international recognition. Three decades earlier, the “Lord Howe Island Act of 1953” established the Island Board, a unique form of government designed with sustainability in mind. Because LHI is a territory under the jurisdiction of New South Wales (NSW; an Australian state which also includes Sydney), it is overseen by that state’s Minister for Environment and Heritage. Its seven members include four native islanders, two reps appointed by the Minister to manage tourism and conservation, and one employee of NSW’s Department of Planning and Environment. Today, the board collaborates to uphold the values of UNESCO, and to keep the island as pristine as it was on the day of its settlement.
As a tiny paradise in a vast sea, Lord Howe Island is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Since 1960, the Tasman Sea has warmed at a rate of three to four times the global average, sparking mass die-offs in LHI’s precarious cloud forests and bleaching among its 90 indigenous coral species. In essence, the islanders’s century-old fight for sustainability is now in the hands of the rest of the world.
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