The island is occasionally serviced by an Island Development Company (IDC) aircraft from Mahé. Economics Two people are involved in small-scale farming and fishing, which are mainly for the island consumption, as well as managing the newly opened lodge. Flora Astove atoll has a very thin soil layer overlying its rocky core, which is pockmarked with caverns. Guano of nesting seabirds has accumulated in these, and the western part has been worked over and some of the guano was mined in the past. Large stretches of the reef rock were stripped bare of vegetation, but some Pisonia grandis and white milkwood (Sideroxylon inerme) persisted. The general vegetation on much of the island's western side is herbaceous plants however, mainly the leadwort Plumbago aphylla, as well as Stachytarpheta species and the crowfoot grass Dactyloctenium pilosum. Coconut palms (Cocos nucifera) remaining from the struggling plantation along the western shore, sisal (Agave sisalana), and wild cotton (Gossypium) are also found here and there. Maize (Zea mays) was planted by the guano miners, but presumably this plant which depends on constant care has disappeared since. The eastern dunes are overgrown with the dropseed grass Sporobolus virginicus near the sea, and on the higher parts bwa matlo (bay cedar, Suriana maritima) shrubs are found. In more sheltered places, a regular scrubland of vouloutye (Scaevola taccada) and tree heliotrope (Heliotropium foertherianum), with some Pisonia, occurs. Here, the main herbs are fimbries (Fimbristylis) and the parasitic vine Cassytha filiformis. The flats around the lagoon show a mixture of grassland (mainly pembagrass, Stenotaphrum dimidiatum) and Pemphis acidula scrub; in places, it is difficult to penetrate to the lagoon through the mass of Pemphis and bwa matlo. Small grey mangroves (Avicennia marina) line much of the southern half of the lagoon rim. Fauna Astove atoll is home to four landbirds: Souimanga sunbird (Cinnyris sovimanga buchenorum) – an endemic race confined to Astove and Cosmoledo. Madagascar cisticola (Cisticola cherina) Pied crow (Corvus albus) Malagasy white-eye (Zosterops maderaspatanus) There are few seabirds, probably due to the presence of rats and feral pigs. Unlike the other two atolls of the group, (Aldabra and Cosmoledo), there are no predator-free islets except for a few small sandbanks close to the lagoon entrance. At the lagoon, Caspian terns (Hydroprogne caspia) will often be seen but it is not known whether or not they ever breed on the sandbanks. Indopacific sooty terns (Onychoprion fuscatus nubilosus) and