Project Name: Enhancing coastal and marine socio-ecological resilience and biodiversity conservation in the Western Indian Ocean.
Funded by: The German International Climate Initiative (IKI) through the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB).
Coordinated by: The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Covering: Mozambique and Seychelles with collaboration from Kenya and Tanzania.
Implemented in Seychelles by: Nature Seychelles

The Western Indian Ocean region lacks coherent systems of governance to support more diverse management of marine and coastal resources by local people and civil society actors. As a result, the local-level benefits from conservation are inadequately maximised, as resource users rarely play an equitable role in decision- making and responsibility for formal marine protected areas. Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs) are still a relatively new concept in the region, and therefore their geographic scope is currently limited. The project will engage at multiple levels in order to establish LMMAs. The total project budget is 4.25 million Euros from the IKI fund with matching funding from implementing partners.

Co-management is included in the Protected Areas Policy of Seychelles and is enshrined in the new draft National Parks and Reserves Bill. In addition, other developments such as the establishment of PPP policy (Private and Public Partnerships) for Seychelles and co-management of fisheries around Praslin Island are all relevant. In Seychelles the project will be implemented by Nature Seychelles, an IUCN Member. The project will last for 4 years and has political support from the MEECC and the Blue Economy Department. The budget from IKI is Euros 680,000.00. With counterpart funding from Nature Seychelles and technical, and capacity building assistance from IUCN, the project will cost almost a million Euros for the Seychelles component.

The project will hire several full time technical and field staff and work with stakeholders including community members, fishers association, tourism and business partners, and government agencies in one site chosen through assessments and participatory processes. At the site level, the project will, with the collaboration of the community and others build infrastructure, such as a visitors facility and a lifeguard station, undertake conservation and restoration actions, provide training and equipment, deliver public awareness programs, support sustainable tourism and fisheries and promote sustainable funding mechanisms. At a strategic level it will: 1. assist in strengthening the enabling institutional environment through policy influencing, advocacy, awareness and capacity building at national levels, and 2. promote international inputs such as the Green List system for certification of protected areas, as well as regional collaboration.

At Nature Seychelles we are committed to working with government, development partners and donors in implementing relevant actions, in particular, looking at certain goals where we can build on our existing strengths. During the Ocean Conference held in New York between 5th and 9th June 2017, Nature Seychelles became a partner in the MARECO Project which will work to Increase the awareness of children for the sustainable use of Coral Reefs and their resources. Through our Marine Conservation and Reef Rescuers work, we continue to be committed to the Call for Action (Our Ocean, Our Future) as outlined vis-à-vis the Ocean Goal.

Other SDG goals in which we have existing projects include: (3) Good Health – Green Health Program; (7) Renewable Energy – Solar Power on Cousin Island; (8) Good Jobs & Economic Growth – 13^th Month Salary; (9) Innovation & Infrastructure – Blue Economy Knowledge Centre; (11) Sustainable Cities & Communities – Urban Wetland Management (13) Climate Action – Reef Rescuers Project; (14) Life Below Water – Marine Reserve on Cousin; (15) Life on Land – Wildlife Habitat on Cousin (17) Partnership for the Goals – Geffroys, MTC, Min of Agriculture, Rotary,  Kreolor,

We are actively seeking new partners and sources of funding to move the SDGs from agenda to action in Seychelles. Please contact us on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information.    

The original Blue Economy concept by Gunter Pauli was to look for the best nature-inspired technologies to shift society from scarcity to abundance by tackling environmental and other problems in new ways. The Seychelles is championing the “Blue Economy” as its future sustainable development model. At the moment there is a need to elucidate, at the least, the corners of what is meant by the Blue Economy for Seychelles as it may be all things to all men and women.

At Nature Seychelles we are convinced that the Seychelles Blue Economy model must offer a new analytical framework as well as a new way of crafting our common future. We have established a Blue Economy centre which will assist in building the content of the Seychelles Blue Economy model. The centre is headed by Ms. Kerstin Henri an experienced Seychellois economist who has worked in the developmental and environmental fields in Seychelles for over 20 years.

The centre will bring together the best practices and knowledge from various programs that Nature Seychelles is working in including research, eco-tourism, coastal & marine conservation and restoration, and climate change adaptation, as well as contributions from national and international partners. The centre will seek to source funding for innovative projects that will contribute to the building blocks of the Seychelles’ Blue Economy. 

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The planet’s oceans are under severe threat from climate change which has recently been identified as the single most palpable threat to all marine ecosystems. The impact of climate change on global coral reefs has been devastating, threatening the livelihoods of millions of people including coastal communities within Eastern Africa and the islands of the Western Indian Ocean. Over the past two decades, coral reefs within the region have suffered widespread degradation through a series of ocean warming events and subsequent coral bleaching. This resulted in an average loss of 90 % live coral cover in 1998 and a further 50 % loss in 2016. In addition to coral mortality, coral bleaching inhibits overall reef health and resilience capacity, coral reproduction and increases disease prevalence.

Motivated by slow post-bleaching recovery rates, the ‘Reef Rescuers’ project was developed to restore the fringing coral reef within Cousin Island Special Reserve. The first-ever large-scale reef restoration project began in 2010 with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development  (USAID). From 2011-2015, The project built and cultivated 12 midwater nurseries(9 rope nurseries and 3 net nurseries), filled initially with up to 40,000 coral fragments or nubbins (from donor corals and corals of opportunity) of 34 coral species (branching, massive and encrusting). A total of 24,431 corals were transplanted in an area of 5,225 m2 within the no-take marine reserve of Cousin Island Special Reserve. Further financial support was received under the Government of Seychelles-Global Environment Facility (GEF)-United Nations Development Project (UNDP) Protected Area Project in 2011  that supported the transplantation of 2,015 corals in an area of 1,636 m2 at a small bay (Petite Anse Kerlan) within the Constance Lemuria 5-star resort in Praslin. Funding from the European Union through the Indian Ocean Commission supported the cultivation of 2000 coral fragments in a restoration project with Six Senses Zil Pasyon Resort at Felicite Island. 

The project has had a very positive knowledge-building impact, with over 60 scientific divers and volunteers trained on reef restoration techniques and the first-ever Reef Rescuers Training program delivered in 2015, with six multinational trainees successfully completing the eight-week training program. A second regional training program from the Western Indian Ocean region was delivered to participants from Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Rodrigues in 2018. To further disseminate knowledge gained from the ongoing Reef Rescuers project, a ‘Reef Restoration Toolkit’ has been published, highlighting lessons learned and restoration best practices. Further support from USAID resulted in the establishment of the Centre for Ocean Restoration Awareness and Learning (CORAL) on Praslin to act as a national and regional hub for knowledge sharing.

See: USAID Restoring Coral Reefs in the Face of Climate Changein the Seychelles

In 2020, we started a new phase of the project to upscale these milestones, which is supported by a grant from the Adaptation Fund through UNDP and the Government of Seychelles through the Restoring Marine Ecosystem Services by Restoring Coral Reefs to Meet a Changing Climate Future project. The project is a regional collaboration between Seychelles and Mauritius to restore reefs using ocean and land-based nurseries, as well as to bolster regional scientific advances and exchanges. The “reef gardening” concept will continue to be used aiming at cultivating at least 50 000 coral fragments to restore at least 1ha of degraded reef around Cousin Island Special Reserve. The project will also look at novel techniques from overseas in coral genetics and reproduction. 

Coral Aquaculture:

Construction has begun of Africa's first on-land regenerative coral aquaculture facility on Praslin, under the current project. Known as the Assisted Recovery of Corals (ARC), the facility is set to revolutionize coral reef conservation and restoration by using a novel technique called micro-fragmentation to produce thousands of coral fragments to supplement current ocean-based nurseries. The facility is financially supported by the Adaptation Fund, the global shipping and logistics company CMA CGM, and the Seychelles Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust (SeyCCAT).

Current collaborations

Demi Damstra, MSc 

Demi Damstra, a student from the University of Groningen, is looking at the effectiveness of different outplanting patterns including the comparison between entire nursery-grown coral vs fragments collected from nursery-grown colonies. If the experiment is successful, we will be able to outplant many more fragments originating from our nurseries.

Charlotte Dale, MSc

Charlotte is a student from Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh) working on the comparison of stocking techniques to implement the productivity and success of the coral nursery phase.

Coastruction

We have partnered with Coastruction, a company focused on the 3D printing of artificial structures (AS). We are testing materials and shapes to find the most ecological functioning strategy to include the use of AS in the restoration project. If you want to be part of this initiative you can visit the following link and support the project with a donation.

Dr. Luca Fallati, PhD (University of Milano-Bicocca)

Photogrammetry is among the novel monitoring techniques in coral restoration. We have partnered with an international expert to obtain the best quality of data to study the success of coral restoration over time using advanced technological tools.

Raffles Seychelles

We have partnered with Raffles in Seychelles to train international and local staff in coral restoration techniques while actively restoring the reef at Anse Takamaka, Praslin, Seychelles. Raffles has developed a restoration project as part of their sustainability strategy to restore the reef in front of the guest’s beach and to spread awareness on this and other environment initiatives. 

 

Programme News

Nature Seychelles outplanted 4,000 corals in Cousin Island Special Reserve in 2022

Seychelles News Agency - Heat-resilient "super corals": Nature Seychelles setting up aquaculture farm for future corals

Greenpeace - A day in the life of a Reef Rescuer – Vital Ocean Voices

BirdLife International - Saving Seychelles disappearing coral reefs

BBC News: Is 'super coral' the key to saving the world's reefs?

WIOMSA - Reef Rescuers: A decade of coral reef restoration in SeychellesReef Rescuers: A decade of coral reef restoration in Seychelles

Reef Resilience Network - Reef Rescuers: Coral Gardening as an MPA Management Tool

An early start for coral reef conservation

PANORAMA Solutions - Reef Rescuers: Restoring coral reef ecosystem services

UNEP - Cousin Island Reef Rescuers Project - Wedocs.unep.org.

Saving the Giant Clams

Constance Lemuria and Nature Seychelles to restore coral reefs

Senior United States Official visits Nature Seychelles’ conservation sites

Black Pearl Seychelles Ltd donates Giant Clams to Reef Rescuers

Restauration des récifs coralliens des Seychelles (French, Plongeur.com Magazine)

Nursing Indian Ocean coral reefs back to life (Deutsche Welle)

US Ambassador praises coral project

Help in deep waters

US Navy personnel give back to conservation projects

Reef Rescuers: The people who plant corals

A day in the life of a reef rescuer

Building coral reefs of the future

Press Release: Launching of project to save reefs from climate change

Videos

CNN-Inside Africa - Reef rescuers race against time

Reef Rescuers Project Launch (SBC news segment in Creole)

French Documentary on Reef Rescuers Project (Franck Fougère-Gnagni - Les Seychelles, Une Seconde vie pour le Corail + BONUS Longitude 181 et François Sarano)

See more on Nature Seychelles You Tube Channel

Audio

Saving coral reefs in the Seychelles (Radio piece by Deutsche Welle)