It is always nice to receive an award, but it is from an international organisation with a fantastic reputation worldwide it takes on a totally different dimension.  The Conde Nast Traveler magazine, consistently voted by readers and critics to be the best travel magazine on the market, presented Cousin Island Special Reserve with its Ecotourism Award for 2004.

An international initiative to investigate the effectiveness of the management of protected areas in the East Africa and Western Indian Ocean region has recently published its results. The study was carried out by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Full story

Conservation teams from Cousin Island Special Reserve and the privately-owned nature reserve and 4 luxury villa retreat Cousine, its near neighbour, met on Monday 11 April on Cousine island. The meeting resulted in a historic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) being signed by the two island Managers, Joel Souyave of Cousin, and Jock Henwood of Cousine. The MOU sets out the areas of conservation work on which the islands will now work in partnership, for the benefit of Seychelles wildlife conservation and eco-tourism.

Researchers from Newcastle University in the UK are surveying the reefs around Cousin island, in a joint project with Nature Seychelles. The Newcastle team first carried out a study on Cousin in 1994, and again just after the coral bleaching event of 1998. The bleaching was caused by rising sea temperatures and resulted in widespread coral reef disintegration in Seychelles and elsewhere.