27/9/2016 DRAFT 1.8 ATLAS OF THE SMALL EUROPEAN ISLANDS Atlas of the ESIN Islands 1 Introduction 2 2 The islands of Europe 3 3 The ESIN islands of Europe 9 4 Sustainability indicators 12 5 The ESIN islands per nation 14 The small islands of Croatia 15 The small islands of Denmark 18 The small islands of Estonia 23 The small islands of Finland 24 The small islands of France 28 The small islands of Greece 31 The small islands of Ireland 35 The small islands of Italy 38 The small islands of Scotland 40 The small islands of Sweden 43 The small islands of Åland 49 6 References 51 1 (64) Christian Pleijel [email protected] Tel +358-457-342 88 25 ESIN ATLAS / DRAFT 1.8 1 Introduction 1.1 Purpose The purpose of this Atlas is to (a) present some basic data on the geographical features of the small islands of Europe who are members of the European Small Islands Federation (ESIN), and to (b) raise awareness of the lack of other, relevant basic data on the same small islands. An island is a piece of land surrounded by water. This atlas is focussed on small and very small islands that fall below the system of territorial units for statistics (NUTS) within the European Union not having a fixed link to the European mainland. ESIN represents 1,640 such islands with a resident population of 359,357people. These small islands have 3-4 million summer residents and ten times as many visitors, which creates a heavy human pressure on the islands’ social, technical and ecological systems. They are valuable natural sites of major importance for a rare fauna and flora, and are naturally positioned to be vital parts of the Blue Strategy. Small islands are forced to and have learnt to be sustainable because of their scarcity of resources and high costs for external resources. They have a lot to gain in being economically, environ- mentally and socially self-sufficient. They bring great value to the European Community and could be better governed were they more accurately described. 1.2 Delimitations This draft of an Atlas of small European islands is delimited to those that are currently ESIN members. 1.3 Maps The maps show different aspects of the small such as size, distances, population change and the threat from climate change. September 2016, Denis Baric, Denis Bredin, Camille Dressler, Micaela Jansson, Elefterios Kechagioglou, Neil Lodwick (chapter 4), Maret Pank, Elle Puurman, Lise Thillemann Sørensen, Rhoda Twombly and Christian Pleijel (editor) 2 (64) ESIN ATLAS / DRAFT 1.8 2 The islands of Europe 2.1 What is an island? The Eurostat publication Portrait of the Islands (Eurostat, 1994) proposed a definition of islands including five criteria: - an area exceeding 1 km2 - a distance of at least one kilometre to the continent - no permanent link with the continent - no presence of an EU capital city - a permanent resident population of at least 50 people. The latter of these criteria was primarily included for reasons of data availability, as it appeared impossible to collect data for islands with less than 50 inhabitants. According to these criteria, the study concluded there are 440 islands in Europe. This pragmatic solution to a statistical challenge has tended to become a definitional criterion in its own right when subsequent studies have reused these criteria, for exam- ple in the Analysis of the island regions and outermost regions of the European Union (Planistat Europe and Bradley Dunbar, 2003). The authors of this study highlight the limitations of such a definition in the introduction to the report. They suggest that is- lands less than one kilometre from the coast may experience the same problems as other islands and that archipelagos (comprising several islands redundant which do not satisfy the criteria individually are excluded, even if the archipelago as a whole would satisfy the criteria). In the Fifth Cohesion Report (CEC, 2010), islands are defined as “NUTS 3 regions where the majority of the population live on one or more islands without fixed connections to the mainland, such as a bridge or a tunnel”. 2.2 How many inhabited European islands are there? The number of inhabited islands in Europe, big or small, bridged or un-bridged, NUTS or non-NUTS, in seas, rivers and lakes, states, regions, municipalities or else, is 2,418 with a resident population of 13,9 million people. Total of inhabited Whereof Unin- Country islands big habited Number Population islands islands Albania 7 Croatia 311 114,174 1,000 Cyprus 854,000 1 Denmark 76 976,771 3 Estonia 20 51,361 2 217 3 (64) ESIN ATLAS / DRAFT 1.8 Finland 455 54,000 179,000 France 188 58,674 1 Faroe Islands 12 48,574 Germany 45 345,932 Greece 144 1,078,082 4 Greenland 39 56,648 Iceland 3 332,529 1 Ireland 65 22,376 1 Italy 73 237,639 2 Latvia 5 773 Lithuania 1 1,642 Malta 2 423,382 Montenegro 2 125 Netherlands 21 1,190,015 Norway 104 356,319 Poland 3 102,237 Portugal 14 3,213,013 Romania 1 25 Russia 5 204,683 Spain 18 3,213,013 Sweden 879 220,000 2 221,800 Ukraine 3 3,744 UK England 27 734,924 Northern Ireland 1 110 Scotland 86 99,623 79 Orkney 21 18,664 Shetland 10 22,785 Isle of Man 1 64,679 Channel Islands 7 125,000 Aland islands 52 28,007 6,412 Sum 2,418 13,926,700 21 408,805 7 4 (64) ESIN ATLAS / DRAFT 1.8 2.3 Statistics on European islands The nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS)1 was established by the statis- tical office of the European Communities, in cooperation with the Commission’s other departments, so as to establish a single, uniform breakdown of territorial units for the production of Community regional statistics. The current NUTS 2013 classification subdivides the economic territory of the European Community into 98 regions at NUTS 1 level, 276 at NUTS 2 and 1,342 at NUTS 3. On NUTS 2 level are regions, provinces and prefectures, 800,000 to 3 million people headed by a governor. On NUTS 3 level are parishes, cantons, oblast, cities, counties and munici- palities, 15,000 to 800,000 people headed by a mayor. Deviations exist for particular geographical, socio-economic, historical, cultural or environmental circumstances, espe- cially for islands and outermost regions. Fifteen island regions with NUTS 1 or NUTS 2 status are identified. Six of these are Outermost regions. All remaining regions are Mediterranean, except for the Åland archi- pelago, which is an autonomous part of Finland. This leads to a delineation and typology of European islands showed in the map2 below: 1 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics- explained/index.php/Glossary:Nomenclature_of_territorial_units_for_statistics_(NUTS) 2 GEOSPECS European Perspectives on Specific Types of Territories, Final Report 20/12/2012 5 (64) ESIN ATLAS / DRAFT 1.8 6 (64) ESIN ATLAS / DRAFT 1.8 2.4 The European small islands as an asset In regional planning, small islands are mostly invisible or else being portrayed and judged by "what they don't have" including people, natural resources and competitive advantages. This rhetoric has even been adopted by us islanders to garner global atten- tion and resources. More recently, we have developed a countervailing narrative that sees island societies as resilient, nimble, flexible, connected and adaptable to external events. Seas are increasingly being viewed as routes and highways instead of as barriers. Rather than being poverty-stricken and destitute, many islands might be more accurately described as innovative and entrepreneurial, with a great potential because of (1) the vast sea that surrounds them, (2) the many people that use them, (3) the large eco- systems that need them, and (4) the big place they occupy in the human mind despite their smallness. Because of their geographic circumstances they have, through necessity, become innovative and entrepreneurial over time. 1 Islands are vital for the the European blue growth ‘Blue Growth’ is the European long term strategy to support sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors. Islands give their respective nations right to vast sea areas as well as seabeds. Example: Islands constitute 5,8% of the Croatian land but represent 37% of Croatia total area as a nation when the sea is included. The blue strategy consists of aquaculture, coastal tourism, marine biotechnology, ocean energy and seabed mining. Islands also offer excellent wind, solar and tidal opportuni- ties. Example: In 2015, a SABELLA turbine12 was installed on the seafloor in the famous tidal stream “Fromveur” between islands Ouessant and Molène on the coast of Brittany, connected to Ouessant by a 2,000 meter underwater cable. It is 17 meters high and weighs 400 tonnes, built for this hostile environment, pre-orientated in the direction of the tidal currents with a profile of its symmetrical blades helping to capture the ebb and flow. http://www.sabella.fr/fiche.php?id=112&lg=gb Blue Growth depends largely on the ‘wet area’ of islands, and inhabited islands are vital key points for this strategy as bases for competence, maintenance and service. 2 Islands are vital for European people as resorts Encyclopaedias such as Wikipedia give a false impression of the human pressure on small islands. Typically, an island with 100 resident inhabitants have ten times more summer inhabitants and a hundred times more visitors. 7 (64) ESIN ATLAS / DRAFT 1.8 Example: The island of Nagu3 in Finland has 1,350 all-year residents, 8,500 summer residents who spend 30 days on the island, 30,000 visitors who spend 2 days and 1,700,000 persons travelling through the island.