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The Torres Islands are in Torba Province of Vanuatu , the northernmost island group in the country. The chain of islands that make up this micro-archipelago straddle the broader cultural boundary that distinguishes Island Melanesia from several Polynesian Outlier s located in the neighbouring Solomon Islands . To the north is Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands, to the south Espirito Santo , and to the southeast the Banks Islands . To the west, in the ocean, is the deep Torres Trench , the subduction zone between the Australian and Pacific Plate s. The seven islands in the Torres group, from north to south, are Hiu (the largest), '''Metoma''', '''Tegua''', '''Nmwel''' (an uninhabited islet), '''Linua''', '''Loh''', and '''Toga'''. This chain stretches 42 km. The highest point of the chain is only 200 m above sea level. They are less rugged than the country's islands further south, and have white sand beaches. As of mid-2004, they sustained a total population of approximately 950 people, and have seven settlements, all of them located on coastal areas. The names of these settlements are: Iegevigemene (or '''Yeu Gavigamena''') and '''Iukwana''' (or '''Yokwana''') (on Hiu), '''Litao''' (on Tegua; the name of this village is often misspelled '''Lateu'''), '''Lunharigi''' and '''Rinua''' (on Loh), and '''Likwal''' and '''Kwurengretakwe''' (or '''Kuroretapo''') (on Toga). A small airstrip on Linua opened in 1983 and provides the only regular transportation link with the rest of Vanuatu . Lunghariki is considered the administrative centre for the Torres Islands, but this role is very small. It has a community phone and medical clinic, but no banks or police station and few stores. NAME One of the most important pre-European names by which this group of islands was known by its inhabitants and other neighbouring societies was Vava. However, sometime in the early nineteenth century the name Torres was given to the group by European cartographers in remembrance of the sixteenth-century Portuguese navigator, Luis Váez De Torres , who briefly visited some of the islands of North and Central Vanuatu in April, May and June of 1606, and whose name was also given to the important Torres Strait that separates mainland Australia from the island of New Guinea . Ironically, neither Torres, his commander Pedro Fernández De Quirós , nor any of their subordinates ever saw, heard of or even came near to the Torres Islands during their cruise through the archipelago. Nevertheless, through its repeated appearance in European charts, the name of Torres eventually stuck and the islands have been known as such for almost two hundred years. The inhabitants of these islands do not know or concern themselves with the story and meaning of the name Torres. HISTORY According to the meagre archaeological data currently available about the prehistory of this group, the Torres Islands were probably first populated around 2200 years ago. They were the last islands in the country to be reached by European explorers, in the 19th century. They became part of the Anglo-French Condominium of the New Hebrides in 1916, and part of the Republic Of Vanuatu in 1980. ECOLOGY Like the rest of the country, the islands are in the Vanuatu Rain Forests ecoregion. The Coconut Crab (''Birgus latro'') is one of its most famous species. Since the airstrip at Linua opened, these animals have become the single most important Cash Crop in the Torres group, given the increasing consumption of coconut crab by the tourist market in Luganville and Port Vila . This situation has resulted in an important and incremental decline in the local coconut crab population, and cannot but eventually lead to the severe depletion of this creature's numbers in the Torres group. CULTURE The inhabitants of the Torres Islands represent three distinct Austronesian Language groups, Loh, Toga, and Hiu. Loh and Toga are often grouped together as a single language, but its speakers reject this; it is probably the case that they are more similar to each other than to Hiu. The islanders divide themselves ethnically into similar groups. The islanders were studied ethnographically by W. J. Durrad in the 1940's and are now the bailiwick of Carlos Mondragón . Today, the inhabitants of the Torres Islands continue to follow to the same general patterns of Subsistence Agriculture and supplementary Fishing activities that their ancestors did. In addition, their cultural heritage and ritual cycles are still mostly extant. Nevertheless, important and profound changes have transformed the lives and worldviews of these people as a result of more than a century of contacts and interpenetration by the Anglican church, colonial administrators and merchants, and the postcolonial influence of the nation-state and the international world market (whose greatest direct manifestation is in the form of independent travellers, sailing ships and luxury cruise liners which visit this island group every so often). RUMORS Given their relative isolation, several mistaken rumours regarding the Torres Islands and their people have become widespread by way of travel guides and the mass media. The most notable unsubstantiated claim is that the small village of Litao, on Tegua island (usually reported as Lateu; population: 45, all related to one large lineage) has become one of the first human settlements in Oceania to suffer from the effects of rising Sea Level s as a result of Global Warming . While global warming has now been established as an undisputable scientific fact, there were no thorough scientific observations undertaken by the team of regional environmental observers who visited Tegua and first began to voice this claim in 2003. In this respect, it is important to underline the fact that Litao village is a relatively recent settlement (founded under pressure from Anglican missionaries about 100 years ago), and that it was built on a very feeble bed of coral and limestone which has been slowly eroding owing to long-term wave activity. Moreover, it is notable that no other part of the coast of Tegua is suffering from the erosion and waterlogging that have begun to undermine the ground at Litao for the past decade. Therefore, evidence for the claim that Litao is being destroyed by rising sea levels is inconclusive at best, and awaits further and thorough scientific scrutiny. Nevertheless, this story was magnified by worldwide media during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal in late 2005, and has been promoted by various international organizations including the South Pacific Regional Environmental Program (SPREP). Other mistaken rumours regarding the Torres Islands (some of which are reproduced in influential travel guides such as those from Lonely Planet ) are that their inhabitants are keen Surfers (they are not, and have never had a tradition of surfing) and that children on the island of Toga smoke pipes and chew Betelnut (in fact, betelnut is practically nonexistent in the Torres group). EXTERNAL LINKS
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