Much of the island's sparse vegetation has been destroyed by feral goats and sheep, to the extent that following its rare rains, the sea around it is stained red from runoff.

It is reported that at one time the island was inhabited by a clan called the "Moi a Tiu", but that population has long since been wiped out by disease and war, the few survivors having departed for Hiva ʻOa.

Decimated by fighting and disease brought by foreign sailors, the few survivors eventually abandoned the island and headed for Hiva Oa.

[1] Thor Heyerdahl found several stone house platforms (paepae) in the arid east of the island during a brief foray in 1938.

[The island] lies 4 ½ Leagues south of the eastern point of La Dominica [Hiva Oa] and we do not know whether it is inhabited or not, probably not, however, as nature does not seem to have endowed it with anything that men require.

At 300 meters to the southeast is Terihi, a rocky islet of 0.150 km2 with a very steep coastline and a total perimeter of 3.4 kilometers, which is part of the same volcanic complex.

The flora is sparse and consists mainly of the hardy grass Eragrostis xerophila and the slow-growing nightshade Nicotiana fragrans var Fatuhivensis, a species endemic to Fatu Hiva and Mohotani.

Sheep introduced by French settlers from Hiva Oa in the second half of the 19th century have run rampant and cause erosion by grazing low vegetation.

fatuhivensis, which belongs to the tobacco plants and is endemic to Fatu Hiva and Mohotani, purslane (Portulaca oleracea), and the herbs Eragrostis xerophila and Brachiaria reptans grow.

[8] There are only two species of mammals, neither of which is indigenous: the Pacific rat, probably introduced by Polynesians as a food animal, and sheep, which Europeans settled in the 19th century.

Among the landbirds, the Marquesas monarch,[9] in the Pomarea mendozae montanensis variation, and Acrocephalus caffer consobrinus, a subspecies of the long-billed warbler, are endemic.