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'Islands of Sustainability' is a resource for learning about the practicalities of operating on-line community-led conservation management. Developmental islands with action plans for sustainable development emerge in a range of contexts, from local nature reserves to urban communities. A 'sustainable island' is a special area at a local or regional level within a 'sea of unsustainable activity'. A water-separated island can be physically isolated from an unsustainable mainland consumer economy; a grassy field rich in biodiversity can be a landlocked island surrounded by intensive cereal production. A town with a plan for sustainable development can exist as an urban island within which a social group can thrive as a neighbourhood island.

Islands of sustainabiity can be seen as bottom up 'trouble makers'. They infiltrate the whole unsustainable system of mass production and consumerism by acting as cells for networking ideas about integrating culture with ecology. They are therefore 'small worlds in nature' knowledge systems for living with the natural world. The small world properties of a network of action plans for sustainability will simultaneously achieve wide participation with great outreach and accumulate and disseminate valuable know how. 'Islands of Sustainability' gathers together a selection of webpages from a range of sources to promote such a network.

This site is being developed by the Going Green Directorate to celebrate the 50th anniversary (2009) of the Welsh offshore island of Skomer becoming a National Nature Reserve, It is part of the COSMOS project for sustainability education, sponsored by Chevron Texaco, Pembroke Works.