Norfolk Island

Declared in 1986, it protects much of the surviving native vegetation of Norfolk Island, an Australian external territory in the South Pacific settled originally by descendants of the HMS Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian companions, resettled here in 1856 after leaving overcrowded Pitcairn Island. The park protects the last native forests of Norfolk pine, a tree of characteristically symmetrical growth that gives the island its name and is grown ornamentally in coastal cities around the world today, though in the wild it survives only in this small territory. It is also home to the Norfolk Island green parrot, one of the most threatened birds in the world, whose total wild population has at times been down to barely a few dozen individuals.