seychelles tagged posts

Seychelles, in partnership with the World Bank, is for the first time exploring the potential of implementing an innovative solution to build the island nation’s coastal resilience and reduce the impact of coastal erosion. This solution, called the ‘blue barriers’ concept, involves the construction of an underwater structure through the use of non-toxic materials, onto which corals are transplanted, creating a man-made reef.

The principal secretary of Environment, Alain De Comarmond, told SNA that the blue barrier concept is another approach used for climate change adaptation.

“There are different ways to deal with coastal erosion. You can stop it when it reaches the land, where you build walls or do rock armouring...

A British family is leaving their comfortable life in London in order to pursue something more. The Seath family, including Karolina, Barry and their two children, are about to move to an island you probably never heard of in a bid to help replenish and revitalize the area’s coral reef, which have been ravaged by the rising sea temperatures off the coast of Africa’s smallest island.

The island in the Seychelles, measuring just 400 metres long by 300 metres wide, will play host to the family’s land-based coral farm, which will only be the second of its kind in the entire world — the other being on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

“We are just a normal husband, wife, and two kids, living the sort of life that most others do… but we felt the need to make a positive change for oursel...

On board Darryl Green’s small fishing boat, just off the island of Praslin in the Seychelles, the water is so clear we can see the seabed. Brightly coloured fish swim around the hull. “You know at my age I’ve seen the fish size decrease dramatically,” the fisherman reminisces. He’s on board his boat with his young grandson in tow.

“If as fishermen, we do not take responsibility for our fish stocks, who’s going to do it? If we don’t start somewhere then in the future we’re going to be very hard pushed to find fish to feed our children.”

Mr Green has been fishing his local bay for decades – but not any more. He’s set up a project with his fellow fishermen to voluntarily stop fishing here for six months of the year, hoping that this will allow fish stocks to replenish.

“This is our office,” ...

In February 2018 the Government of Seychelles announced the creation of two new areas for marine protection covering 16 per cent (210,000 square kilometres) of its ocean:

• 74,400 square kilometres of mostly deep and some inshore waters surrounding the Aldabra Group, an archipelago 1,100 kilometres west of Seychelles’ main islands where endangered marine species live and breed, or migrate through.

• 136,000 square kilometres of deep waters stretching between the Amirantes Group and Fortune Bank, a swathe of Seychelles’ central ocean that includes areas important for biodiversity conservation, tourism and fishing industries.

The first area is a new Marine National Park that restricts almost all human activities in one of the world’s most ecologically important habitats, the waters a...

Beneath the crystal-clear waters of the Indian Ocean island nation of the Seychelles, a fight is growing to save the coral reefs that shelter a range of creatures, from tiny invertebrates to the sprawling octopus, from climate change.

The fragile reefs act both as a protective barrier for coastlines and an attraction for the tourists who keep the country’s economy going. But the reefs are also one of the first victims of rising ocean temperatures.

The Seychelles in some areas lost up to 90 percent of its coral reefs in 1998 in an environmental event known as bleaching, where coral in warming waters expel the colorful algae that live within their skeletons and, without their nutrients, starve...

In what is being hailed as a global first, Seychelles has agreed to swap parts of its debt in return for designating nearly a third of its waters as protected areas. The island nation will secure roughly 210,000 square kilometers (81,000 square miles) at the Aldabra Atoll, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, from fishing, oil exploration, and commercial development.

The debt-for-nature deal was brokered by NatureVest, the conservation investing unit of the US-based The Nature Conservancy. As part of the plan, the group will purchase up to $21.6 million of the nation’s over $400 million debt at a discount, and will redirect the payments from creditors to a newly-created local trust.

The trust will then use the payments to repay the initial capital raised and also fund marine conversation plans...

Coral reefs provide a home to fish and protect coasts from eroding. But, they are threatened, and have suffered from ocean warming. In the Seychelles, a project is underway to transplant healthy coral onto dying reefs.

It’s early afternoon as the divers resurface. One by one, members of the team climb on board the boat that has been anchoring off the coast of the small Seychelles island of Cousin in the Indian Ocean. They start shivering in the heavy winds shaking the boat, and look exhausted. The’ve just finished their second dive of the day; each was one-and-a-half hours long.

They’ve been busy underwater, cleaning the ropes and nets of what they refer to as their “coral nursery” – a set of ropes and nets hanging from pipes, which are in turn fixed on the ground...