Politics of the Collectivity of Saint Martin Politics of the Collectivity of Saint Martin Saint Martin was a French commune for many years and formed part of Guadeloupe, which is an overseas "région" and "département" of France and is therefore in the European Union. In 2003, the population of the French part of the island voted in favour of secession from Guadeloupe in order to form a separate overseas collectivity (COM) of France. On 9 February 2007, the French Parliament passed a bill granting COM status to both the French part of Saint Martin and neighbouring Saint Barthélemy. The new status took effect once the local assembly
Biodiversity of New Caledonia the view of the island as a surviving fragment of the Cretaceous period is obsolete.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,