Dr Julian Hume, a palaeontologist at the University of Portsmouth, has spent 10 years studying the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean and documenting the dozens of species that have become extinct since their discovery by man in the 1600s.

Published this week, his book Lost land of the Dodo describes how early settlers effectively wiped out more than half of the islands' wildlife in just a few hundred years, including the flightless Dodo.

The study was possible because the settlers documented their discoveries and the changes they introduced.

It is the first time someone has traced the ecological decline of a region from the moment man first set foot upon the land and offers an insight into the effect mankind can have on a fragile ecosystem in a very short time.

Dr Hume said: 'The islands were once home to an extraordinary range of birds and reptiles which evolved in the absence of natural predators. The land was dominated by giant tortoises, flightless birds, huge parrots, and of course the Dodo.

'But only one per cent of the original rainforest remains, most of the flora and fauna are endangered and 45 species of animals and birds have been lost.

'The saddest thing is we haven't learned the lessons of the past. Flying over Indonesia is sickening because of the amount of deforestation and pollution in the seas.'

Dr Hume has personally discovered five species and documented dozens more from more than 20 visits to the islands.

In the book he has re-created the lost species through dramatic paintings, portraying a lost 'Garden of Eden' rich in animal and birdlife which will never be seen again.

The ecology of the islands changed dramatically after colonisation by European settlers who slaughtered birds and tortoises and introduced rats, goats and deer and started clearing forests.

Large flightless birds including the Dodo were gone within 60 years of the colonisation and over the next 150 years most of the Mascarenes' other native vertebrates followed suit.

'We know that cats were introduced in 1690 and that 10 years later a flightless bird we call the Red Hen had totally disappeared,' said Dr Hume.

sion.donovan@thenews.co.uk