Pretty much every island near the equator looks like a tropical paradise. But appearances can be deceiving. A lot of these places are poverty stricken because of their distance from economic centers of the world. And many of these island paradises ( especially in the pacific ) have suffered ecological disasters due to introduction of invasive species by european explorers.
I think Attenborough did a documentary a while back on how the introduction of invasive cats, rats, snakes and even spiders would wipe out local fauna on these islands because the local fauna weren't used to predation. Pretty interesting stuff.
Also, the local population of these islands are suffering extreme health issues ( primarily obesity related ) due to all the junk food they are eating.
The nature is beautiful for sure, but it isn't all paradise. And we haven't even touched on the impact of global warming on these islands and the fact that some of these islands might have to be evacuated in the next few decades.
Listen to RNZI news (it streams), and you'll be surprised how many visually idillic Pacific Islands are wrought with military dictatorships, poverty, violence (gun, domestic, military), and worse.
There was one recent article about how a mission to distribute life-saving vaccines had to be abandoned because of a lack of infrastructure and trucks able to get to the villages that need it.
I spent a lot of time a few years back reading some Russian world traveller's photo blog (he looooved taking photos of signs and fire hydrants and such, which I wasn't super into but was sometimes interesting, but also posted plenty of other things—I misplaced the URL long ago or I'd link it) and the rule for off-the-beaten-path tropical paradises seemed to be that they were incredibly poor and absolutely covered in litter and improvised garbage dumps. If there were touristy sections it'd be every square meter of the place off the tourists' beach that looked like this.
I think Attenborough did a documentary a while back on how the introduction of invasive cats, rats, snakes and even spiders would wipe out local fauna on these islands because the local fauna weren't used to predation. Pretty interesting stuff.
Also, the local population of these islands are suffering extreme health issues ( primarily obesity related ) due to all the junk food they are eating.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1533815/
The nature is beautiful for sure, but it isn't all paradise. And we haven't even touched on the impact of global warming on these islands and the fact that some of these islands might have to be evacuated in the next few decades.
https://www.businessinsider.com/islands-threatened-by-climat...