WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013 | 5THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES.

M any of them mushroom-shapedand crowned with thick vegetation,scattered through seawater that

runs all the way from jade green and tur-quoise to peacock blue, the Rock Islands ofPalau’s Southern Lagoon have an unearthlyfeel. If not Pandora or Alderaan, then someother alien world conjured in the mind ofGeorge Lucas or James Cameron. Becauseon first glance, one thinks: This can’t be real.

That’s only part of the reason thatUnesco listed the 445 islands that comprisethis astonishing archipelago as one of theglobe’s newest World Heritage sites in 2012.The islands’ extraordinary beauty is comple-mented by a huge diversity of plants, birds

and marine life — many of the species foundnowhere else on our planet — and by a long-lost human civilization that arrived in theRock Islands more than 3,000 years ago.

‘‘Not only is the place physically beauti-ful,’’ says Karen L. Nero, who has done re-search in Palau for more than 30 years, ‘‘italso has art works of great beauty, tradition-al meeting houses, a spectacular habitatand a history that is accessible.’’

The Republic of Palau lies about 500miles (800 kilometers) east of the Philip-pines and 500 miles north of New Guinea inthe southwestern corner of the Pacific. TheRock Islands are in the southern part ofKoror state, inside the coral ramparts of the

massive Southern Lagoon. It was that reefthat scuttled the British packet ship Ante-lope in 1783, stranding the crew and givingthe outside world its first glimpse of theRock Islands. The account of that ship-wreck, published five years later, painted avivid picture of tropical paradise: ‘‘The is-lands of Pelew, when viewed from the sea,exhibited high rugged land, well covered withwood. The interior part was in many placesmountainous, but the vallies were extensiveand beautiful, spreading before the eyemany delicious prospects.’’

Those ‘‘delicious prospects’’ are stillthere and have gone virtually untouched inthe intervening years, an island and oceanhabitat that has passed into the 21st centu-ry as one of the most pristine in the entirePacific basin.

One of the site’s most outstanding char-acteristics is diversity, a vast array of habit-ats in which all sorts of wildlife thrives (in-cluding 385 coral species). Besides thefringing reefs, one also finds underwatercaves and channels, tunnels and arches,sea grass and algal beds, shallow bays andcoves. The terrestrial areas are also varied,

ranging from beaches and limestone cliffsto wetlands, mangroves and wooded hills.

‘‘The Rock Islands are unique in that theycontain all the biodiversity that can be foundin Palau,’’ says Ilebrang U. Olkeriil, coastalmanagement officer of the Koror State De-partment of Conservation and Law Enforce-ment. ‘‘You can find dugongs,you can find manta rays, andbats on the limestone islands.You can go scuba diving withsharks and turtles, as well as gosnorkeling with unique jellyfish.Or you can go on a trip and seecrocodiles, fruit bats and birds.’’

One of the most unusualfeatures is an abundance ofmarine lakes — 52 bodies ofbrackish and salt water de-tached from the open ocean —more of these lakes than anyother place on Earth. In recent years, fivenew subspecies of jellyfish have been dis-covered in these lakes, and scientists arecertain that more new species will be recor-ded as these unique water bodies are morethoroughly examined.

Ongeim’l Tketau (Jellyfish Lake) is theonly one that visitors can currently access.Its English name derives from a populationof as many as 25 million golden jellyfish(Mastigias cf. papua etpisoni). This endemicspecies migrates horizontally across thelake each day, following the movement of

the sun. Another particularity ofthe species is that the toxin de-livered by their nematocysts —the jellyfish’s sting — is gener-ally harmless for humans.

The islands also harborrock art, burial places and theremains of stone villages con-structed by human occupantsbetween the 11th century B.C.and the 17th or 18th centuryA.D., when they moved to lar-ger islands presumably be-cause of population growth or

climate change.Modern Palauans consider the Rock Is-

lands their ancestral homeland and contin-ue their association with the area via oraltraditions and everyday economic, culturalor recreational purposes. These activities

are regulated through traditional gov-ernance and modern laws that seek to pre-serve both the cultural and environmental in-tegrity of the islands.

‘‘Awareness of conservation long pred-ates World Heritage,’’ Nero explains. ‘‘Therewas traditional management for millennia.But World Heritage is important and Palauhopes it will be of great benefit.’’

That doesn’t mean there aren’t perils.‘‘We do have threats to conservation and

challenges that we’re faced with,’’ saysOlkeriil. One of those threats is tourism. Al-though small numbers of people visit Palauat present, the Rock Islands are gaining areputation as a world scuba-diving mecca.Yachts make stops in Palau and a fewcruise ships, fewer than five a year over thelast five years, according to Olkeriil.

‘‘We’re at a crossroads,’’ says Olkeriil,‘‘where we’re balancing, protecting thispristine area while sharing it with the world,and having their input and getting their helpto protect the Rock Islands for our children,as well as for their children’s children tocome and visit.’’

J.R.Y.

Rich in both culturalartifacts and biodiversity,

Rock Islands Southern Lagoonfeatures mountainous

limestone islands, marinelakes and coral reefs.

This installment of the ‘‘Tides of Time’’ series takesour readers to the Rock Islands Southern Lagoonin Palau, inscribed on the World HeritageList in 2012

To benefit one of the iconic divingsites of the world, what could bemore appropriate than one of theworld’s iconic diving watches? Thefifth edition of the Jaeger-LeCoultreonline watch auction to benefit themarine program of Unesco’s WorldHeritage Centre links a Brazilianbeauty with a Swiss reference inwatchmaking, and the winningbidder is not the only beneficiary.

This year the recipient of theauction’s proceeds is thearchipelago of Fernando de Noronha,off the northern coast of Brazil, anunderwater paradise for divers andsnorkelers. They treasure it all themore for its exclusivity: you need toapply for a permit to visit the siteand only 420 tourists are allowed onthe island at any one time.

The Jaeger-LeCoultre Deep SeaChronograph Cermet, a divingwatch newly created by the Swissmanufacture, is equally exclusive.The 2013 timepiece was inspired bythe famous 1959 Memovox DeepSea, the first automatic divingwatch equipped with an alarm. Morethan half a century later, the Swissmanufacture has demonstratedequal ingenuity. The icon now

boasts a housing strengthened witha composite of ceramic and metal,or cermet, in this case aluminumreinforced with ceramic particlescoated with a protective layer ofceramic 40 microns thick, thinnerthan most human hair. The resultantcasing is more resistant to shocksand pressure than pure ceramic, butit is also lightweight — anappreciable feature for divers.

The chronograph has a powerreserve of 65 hours, and anindicator to show whether thisstopwatch feature is running,stopped or at zero, also crucial fordivers, who need to time the lengthof time they’re underwater.

Online watch auctions conductedsince 2009 have enabled Jaeger-LeCoultre to contribute to theprotection of Tubbataha ReefsNatural Park in the Philippines,India's Sundarbans National Park,Malpelo Fauna and Flora Sanctuaryin Colombia, and Puerto-PrincesaSubterranean River National Park inthe Philippines. The current onlineauction began April 23 and runsuntil April 26. To participate, go toauction.jaeger-lecoultre.com.

C.F.

Jaeger-LeCoultre auction to benefit Brazil’s World Heritage

PEOPLE | Culture and tradition

Honoring ancestors through conservation of natural heritage

R ocks tell us about our past. The illu-minating quality of rocks can be seenin microcosm in 445 uninhabited is-

lands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.The appropriately named Rock Islands, lo-cated in the Southern Lagoon of the tinycountry of Palau in Western Micronesia, be-came a World Heritage marine site in 2012,in part because of the history engraved onits stones.

Karen Nero, senior research fellow at theTe Tumu School of Maori, Pacific and Indige-nous Studies of the University of Otago, NewZealand, notes that the majority of Palauansvisit the Rock Islands frequently and has astrong connection to the site. The Rock Is-lands became a protected area under theKoror Rock Islands Management and Con-servation Act in 1997.

Honor for one’s past through conserva-tion is a cultural tradition in Palau, and the

links between the people and their environ-ment are strong. ‘‘Palauans learn the land-scape as children,’’ says Nero, who hasspent the last 30 years studying the oraltraditions and art of Palau.

‘‘To a large extent,’’ she says, ‘‘thePalauan histories are literally written on theland and seascapes, not only through nam-ing, but through the stone house and meet-ing-house platforms, wells, pot shards andgarden areas that remain.’’

Although this World Heritage site is un-populated, and the total population of Palauis less than 22,000, archeologists believethat about a thousand years ago, the RockIslands sustained 4,000 to 6,000 people.Why they left is the subject of study and dis-cussion, but it is believed to be related to cli-mate change and overfishing, problems thatare familiar to contemporary researchers.

Research published by Julian Sachs of

the University of Washington suggests thataround 500 years ago the amount of rainfallin the area decreased markedly. The implica-tion is that climate change reduced food andwater sources and increased conflict in aplace where resources necessary to lifewere already limited. Thus the local popula-tion was compelled to migrate from the RockIslands to more hospitable environments.

Geoffrey Clark, a professor at the Schoolof Culture, History and Language at the Aus-tralian National University College of Asiaand the Pacific, was the lead author of thecultural component of the site’s nomination

Rock Islands Southern Lagoon is the 41st in the ‘‘Tides of Time’’ series about Unesco’sWorld Heritage marine sites. It produced by the IHT Creative Solutions department and doesnot involve the newspaper’s reporting or editorial departments. ‘‘Tides of Time’’ is apartnership among Jaeger-LeCoultre, the UnescoWorld Heritage Centre Marine Program andthe International Herald Tribune. Text by CLAUDIA FLISI and JOSEPH R. YOGERST.

for World Heritage status. He and other re-searchers base their studies on archeology,anthropology and oral tradition, which re-cords events such as protracted warfarebetween various island communities, theimportance of marine resources for humansurvival and the political organization andhierarchy of the islands’ villages.

‘‘The stakes are high in this World Herit-age site,’’ he says, ‘‘and the ebb and flow ofhuman occupation in the Rock Islands is aconcrete example of how climate change af-fects human societies, especially in theheavily populated tropics.’’ C.F.

THE SITE | Rock Islands Southern Lagoon

‘We’re protecting this pristine area while sharing it with the world’

JER

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‘The RockIslands

are uniquein that they

contain all thebiodiversity that

can be foundin Palau’

BID FORA PRECIOUS CAUSE

Jaeger-LeCoultre is offering for Auction a new water-resistantwatch inspired by the Memovox Deep Sea:

the Prototype N° 1 of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Deep SeaChronograph Cermet

Join the cause by visiting auction.jaeger-lecoultre.com

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