Celebrating Seychelles Wildlife: Let's go wild for wildlife

Seychelles-blue-pigeonThe 1st wildlife day was celebrated around the world on Monday, 3rd March 2014, the day adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2013 to celebrate and raise awareness of the world’s wild fauna and flora. "Wildlife is integral to our future through its essential role in science, technology and recreation. It is intrinsic to our continued heritage and sustainable development," the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said during this year's celebration.

UN launches international year of SIDS

sidsThe UN has officially launched 2014 as the International Year of Small Island Developing States (SIDS). The launch ceremony to take place on Monday 24 February, at UN Headquarters in New York. "The International Year is an opportunity to appreciate the extraordinary resiliency and rich cultural heritage of the people of small island developing States" Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said. “This Year takes place at a time when the vast majority of islands are combating the ravages of climate change, and some, like the Maldives are literally sinking because of it,” the current UN General Assembly President, John Ashe, said during a ceremony that included singing, dancing and story-telling.

Success! Nature Seychelles proves that wetlands help prevent flooding

Aerial-view-of-the-SRCRecent heavy rains have proved that Nature Seychelles improvements to the Sanctuary at Roche Caiman wetland work. Flood protection, flow maintenance and water purification are some of the important functions that wetlands provide, and during the past couple of weeks it was noted that unlike in previous years, the road leading to the offices of Nature Seychelles as well as the main road and surrounding areas were not flooded by the heavy rains that fell on Mahe. "It's incredible what a well maintained wetland can do," says Dr. Nirmal Shah, Nature Seychelles Chief Executive. "The wetland did not overflow, our road and its surroundings was not flooded, and we were able to go in and out of our premises. This was not the case before. In the past, we have even once or twice had to tell members and staff to stay away because our road was inaccessible."

Nature Seychelles project keeps "tags" on fish

tove-fish-researcherThe Rabbit fish (Kordonyen blanc) that you find on your plate can swim fantastic distances. This was one of the delightful anecdotes that our fish researcher shared with us recently as we chatted about her project. "A Rabbit fish leaves Cousin Island and swims 3 km during the full moon to a spawning site," Tove says as she starts doing her maths. "It weighs an average of 300 grams, so it’s the equivalent of a normal-sized human swimming 600 km. That's pretty far; it's one third of the distance from the Seychelles to Tanzania!" she jokes.Tove is looking at information she has gathered under a Nature Seychelles' project that is investigating the habitats and migratory movements of commercially valuable fish species within and outside the Cousin Island Marine Protected Area (MPA).

Stormy weather on Cousin Island

staff-flooded-pathsOn New Year's day we shared a photo of a beautiful sunrise over Cousin on our Facebook page. The picture with its muted tones, calm sky and sea was very popular. Little did we know that things would be different in just a few days and the pictures from Cousin would tell a completely different story.Cousin was affected by the bad weather we've experienced in the past few days. Trees have fallen and roofs have been rattled. In the words of one of our staff on Cousin, it felt like someone was shaking our little island. "Honestly I was frightened the other night; we had a 2 hour bombardment of thunder and lightning!" another said. "My house got struck twice and the island is flooded."

Our History

Since 1998.

Seychelles Nature, Green HealthClimate Change, Biodiversity Conservation & Sustainability Organisation

@CousinIsland Manager

Facebook: http://goo.gl/Q9lXM

Roche Caiman, Mahe

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Centre for Environment & Education

Roche Caiman,

P.O. Box 1310, Mahe, Seychelles

Tel:+ 248 2519090

Email: nature@seychelles.net