Isle of Pines (New Caledonia) Isle of Pines (New Caledonia) The Isle of Pines (; name in Kanak language Kwênyii: ') is an island located in the Pacific Ocean, in the archipelago of New Caledonia, an overseas collectivity of France. The island is part of the commune (municipality) of L'Île-des-Pins, in the South Province of New Caledonia. The Isle of Pines is nicknamed ' ("the closest island to Paradise"). The island is around and measures by . It lies southeast of Grande Terre, New Caledonia's main island and is southeast of the capital Nouméa. There is one airport (code ILP) with a runway. The Isle
Biodiversity of New Caledonia the view of the island as a surviving fragment of the Cretaceous period is obsolete. Islands from that time are partly or fully submerged. Most modern New Caledonian terranes formed via accretion of oceanic island arcs and seamounts. The biota evolved as metapopulations on islands that changed constantly until they merged into the archipelago. This hypothesis that the islands and their biota emerged some 30 MYA during the Oligocene better explains the organisms that occur in New Caledonian biota. In the Carboniferous and Permian, New Zealand and New Caledonia were on the periphery of Gondwana, which included Africa, South America,