Photos that document the poisoning of paradise

The beach on Laysan is littered with the detritus of the modern world

Every year, hundreds of thousands of albatrosses come to this speck of land in the vast Pacific Ocean to nest and seek sanctuary from predators.

For centuries, the black-footed and Laysan albatrosses — along with the Christmas shearwaters, sea turtles and monk seals — have been the only living things on the white sands that fringe Laysan island and its neighbouring atolls. It is little wonder that last summer it was declared part of the world's largest marine nature reserve.

Gallery: Jean-Michel Cousteau's journey to a paradise lost

But this paradise is in terrible danger of being lost. The pristine beaches and tide pools of the desert island are becoming choked with the litter of a distant world.

Despite being thousands of miles from the nearest coastline, Laysan, one of the necklace of uninhabited north-western Hawaiian islands, is strewn with thousands of discarded bottles, computers, cigarette lighters, toys, golf balls and even an aeroplane wing.

As far as the eye can see, as these remarkable images show, the broken glass and plastic containers make this island a unique — and sickening — rubbish dump. Much of the larger debris, carelessly discarded by modern man, has been carried by strong ocean currents and washed up with the surf.

The smaller items are brought ashore by the visiting birds who have picked up bottle tops and splinters of materials while foraging at sea. And the daily tide of filth threatens the extraordinary wildlife. It poisons the delicate ecosystem for endangered species, including the monk seal, which now number just 1,200, and the sea turtles which nest on the beaches.

Many of the 14 million seabirds which come here annually bring a deadly legacy for their chicks. Foraging at sea on their long journey, some birds mistake debris for food, swallow it and then regurgitate it for their offspring. The bottle tops and fishing line block the chicks' guts and they slowly starve to death.

Environmentalist Jean-Michel Cousteau, eldest son of the legendary underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau, who first opened our eyes to the effect of pollution on the world's seas, discovered the desecration on a voyage around the archipelago.

'It is paradise and hell united, a catastrophe,' he said. 'This is one of the most isolated places in the world and the beaches are strewn with rubbish and debris. There is one layer on the surface, but when you scrape away a little sand, you find objects which have not been manufactured since 1960.

'No one lives on this island, but I found cigarette lighters, toothbrushes, golf balls and golf tees, even vials of medicine. There are objects from more than 52 countries. I even found the wing of an aircraft.'

M. Cousteau and his team filmed and photographed the appalling scenes to show to a disbelieving outside world.

'It is shocking and we were asked for proof that we had not staged the photographs,' he said. 'But these show the truth. You have kilometres of beaches like this. It is absolutely hellish. We found televisions, computers . . . if there had been people living here, you could understand it but it is uninhabited. It is an ecosystem which is as beautiful as a piece of porcelain. And as fragile.'

The archipelago, which spans 140,000 square miles of the Pacific (almost twice the size of Britain) about 900 miles north of Honolulu, was discovered in the 1820s by a Russian ship and is home to 7,000 species, a quarter of which are found nowhere else in the world. But its isolation means that news of the threat to its existence has only just emerged.

M. Cousteau invited Hawaiian politicians to see the evidence of the appalling pollution and was invited to the White House last summer to show his astonishing film to President George W. Bush.

The President was apparently so moved that he acted immediately to make the archipelago a National Monument, with all the privileges and protections that entails.

'He was enthusiastic,' M. Cousteau said. 'The show had a major impact on him, the way my father's shows had on so many people.

'I think he really made a discovery — a connection between the quality of our lives and the oceans. He congratulated and thanked us, then turned to the audience and announced, with his finger raised: "Get it done!"'

There is talk of banning fishing in the area and a proper watch on the polluting tides. But on just two atolls in the 19-strong island chain, a team of American oceanographers collected 80 tons of fishing nets and rubbish, and every day more washes up on the shores.

Safeguarding one of the world's last paradises is clearly going to be a monumental task.

Receive our newsletter