East Ren­nell makes up the south­ern third of Ren­nell Island, the south­ern­most island in the Solomon Island group in the west­ern Pacif­ic. Ren­nell, 86 km long x 15 km wide, is the largest raised coral atoll in the world. The site includes approx­i­mate­ly 37,000 ha and a marine area extend­ing 3 nau­ti­cal miles to sea. A major fea­ture of the island is Lake Tegano, which was the for­mer lagoon on the atoll. The lake, the largest in the insu­lar Pacif­ic (15,500 ha), is brack­ish and con­tains many rugged lime­stone islands and endem­ic species. Ren­nell is most­ly cov­ered with dense for­est, with a canopy aver­ag­ing 20 m in height. Com­bined with the strong cli­mat­ic effects of fre­quent cyclones, the site is a true nat­ur­al lab­o­ra­to­ry for sci­en­tif­ic study. The site is under cus­tom­ary land own­er­ship and man­age­ment.