Comment by echoangle
6 hours ago
Very nice story.
One thing I often ask myself in these situations: What do the inhabitants on these islands actually do?
There are 259 of them in this case.
Are they self-sustaining? How do they pay for stuff the want to import? Do they live off the cruise ships they supply? And do people generally stay there or do young people generally move to mainland?
Edit: For economy, it looks like they live off exporting langustas.
The UK built a crayfish processing facility so that they could have income. They also sell stamps and a few handmade crafts such as knitted socks. There are a few government jobs and they must make some money from tourism. And they all grow potatoes for their own consumption.
Lobsters. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250915-tristan-da-cunha...
There's actually Street View images, so you can take a look, also at the agricultural plots southwest of the town (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_Patches ). There's some sheep, cattle and (I think) donkeys as well.
There was an AMA by a journalist on the island this year: https://www.reddit.com/r/howislivingthere/comments/1q06v24/i...
>Are they self-sustaining? How do they pay for stuff the want to import
Generally the modern day population of these types of islands are simply cover for the government to maintain political control of an area of ocean surrounding them. Same deal with the Falklands, Orkney/Shetland, etc. To that end their entire existence is more or less subsidised because of this.
Orkney is only 20 miles from the UK mainland so I'm not sure that's the reason. People there make fudge which is pretty good. Until recently (1956) it hosted a major Royal Navy base.
Those two aren't quite comparable; Orkney's been inhabited since before ancient Egypt. Tristan's much more recent, from when we needed stopping points everywhere for sailing ships to pick up water etc.
Isn’t the hosting of a naval base a good example of this island being subsidized because the government wants to control the waters around it? And it being close to mainland is another reason, you don’t want another country having an island that close to you.