Nature Seychelles: the protectors of paradise

Say ‘Seychelles’ out loud and it’s a pretty safe bet that whoever is with you will let out a long sigh and say, “I wouldn’t mind being there right now”. There’s no doubt about it, Seychelles is something of a paradise on earth, known for its incredible natural beauty. But, as they say, nothing good ever comes easy and the lush forests, wildlife and marine life, for which the islands are so famous, take effort. Lots of it.

Which is why Nature Seychelles works tirelessly, year-round, on conservation and research projects, education, ecotourism, community engagement and more. It’s a labour of love that has its roots in the very first days of Seychelles itself.

You see, to understand their work doesn’t just mean knowing about conservation. It requires a bit of a history lesson too. Because this glorious group of islands were entirely uninhabited until around 1770, before which they were just a stopping point for explorers, pirates and traders. The first French settlers immediately noted the island’s fertility and spotted a great economic opportunity, quickly clearing native forests to establish plantations of cotton, spices and coconuts.

Why is this important? Because, like in so many places, the new arrivals introduced animals and plant life into the ecosystem of Seychelles and this has been something that had to be addressed within the lifetimes of Dr Nirmal Shah and his team at Nature Seychelles. “Some of these were private islands, so we worked with the owners to restore them to native vegetation and get rid of rats and cats – alien predators that had been introduced during colonial times – which were very bad for birds and other biodiversity.” These foundational works, establishing forestland and transferring birds to them one-by-one were considered to be some of the most successful conservation projects in the world, establishing Nature Seychelles as not only a powerful voice, but one which takes action and succeeds.

The organisation has been responsible for many incredible successes since it became ‘BirdLife Seychelles’ in 1998. It took over from BirdLife International as wardens of endangered species and transformed habitats, rehabilitated the wetland at Roche Caiman and brought a number of species back from the brink of extinction.

Today, as Nature Seychelles, it operates as a core team of thirty people and continues the extensive programme of work required to maintain the beauty and biodiversity of Seychelles. However, they also bring in other expertise on a project-by-project basis and recently opened the Assisted Recovery of Coral (ARC) facility to build on their fifteen-year-old initiative, ‘Reef Rescuers’, which began as a response to major coral bleaching events.

“It is basically an aquaculture facility, but its purpose is to rear and breed corals that are hopefully resilient to the next wave of coral bleaching that comes,” explains Dr Shah. “By the end of the year, we'll have a facility inside to actually breed corals, rather than propagate corals, but at the moment, we've moved to micro fragmentation, where you cut corals into tiny little pieces and grow them – they grow very fast – and this is exciting, because we can start to propagate what we call massive corals, the non-branching corals that are also important for reef building.”

The ARC facility is on Praslin Island, while the restoration is taking place around two kilometres west – on Cousin Island Special Reserve. It’s a celebrated NGO-managed nature sanctuary that was restored from near ecological collapse by BirdLife International and has been managed and maintained by Nature Seychelles ever since.

Over the past four years, their Reef Rescuers team has been working with volunteer scientific divers to successfully grow 50,000 coral fragments in underwater nurseries on the island. All this despite the project launching at the start of the pandemic, bleaching events and being funded entirely by donations. The work, as with everything Nature Seychelles undertakes, has been relentless.

“We want to use it as a best practice of centre of excellence, for restorative aquaculture in general,” says Dr Shah. “That is aquaculture not meant for commercial use, but for conservation and to adapt to climate change. So, we hope to scale up coral reef restoration by producing not hundreds, but thousands of corals in this facility.”

This ambition can only be enhanced by the arrival of Coral Spawning International, who, in bringing their first of its kind coral breeding lab to ARC, will help the team at Nature Seychelles to develop a deeper understanding of coral reproductive timing, post-settlement growth and survival. It will also create a new genetic bank of resilient coral – supported by Canon and documented by our technology through photomicrography, photogrammetry and the production of high-quality imagery and videos for researchers.

“It’s just such a fresh approach,” says Dr Shah. “We really like what Jamie [Dr Jamie Craggs of Coral Spawning International] is doing – which is, ‘hey, we're in this for the long term. We're in this with you’.” This is fundamentally what Nature Seychelles is all about: long-term thinking. Looking to the future, not just a few years, but generations. Every plan, every decision, every project is viewed through the lens of keeping Seychelles safe, always, while acting as guardians of the islands, maintaining the biodiversity that has been recovered. “The islands are bright and beautiful, yes, but also very innovative,” says Dr Shah. “We constantly have to reinvent ourselves and achieve something new.”

Learn more about our partnership with Coral Spawning International and Nature Seychelles.