A remote Pacific atoll that was once the solitary kingdom of a New Zealand sailor has secured a lasting future, transforming from a hermit's retreat into the first conservation sanctuary in the Cook Islands. Suwarrow, an isolated coral atoll about 1,300 kilometres north of Rarotonga, was officially declared a national park in 1978. The decision came just one year after its most famous resident, Tom Neale, ended his final stay on the island. Neale spent about 16 years living as a solitary beachcomber on Anchorage Island, the main islet in the Suwarrow atoll. His life there, described in his 1966 autobiography An Island to Oneself, turned the tiny island into a symbol of complete isolation. Today, government records and historical archives document how the remote retreat became an important environmental reserve.
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