Meeting the locals

Island Conservation Society is now a growing organisation here in the Seychelles and the amount of work they are doing here for the benefit of nature conservation has really increased over the last year or so. One big aspect of the work now is to work with local people to try increase their awareness and understanding about the very important natural history asset they have on their doorstep.

This is particularly the case with the people from Praslin, who are our immediate neighbours, even if there is 6 nautical miles of Indian Ocean between us. Melv and I are very keen in our two years here to try and build up good relations with groups of people and organisations over there to help ease the way with future projects and the protection of Aride.

There is no getting away from it, although the conservation of the wildlife and habitats here in the Seychelles has moved forward in leaps and bounds, like everywhere it still has its’ problems. One of these is the poaching of seabirds and their eggs. This still goes on in many places and is very lucrative, and because of Aride's richness it is one of the target areas.

The breeding season will soon be upon us and we have already started poaching patrols. Our intention is to try and deter as many as possible, rather than get face-to-face, and we are working with the local police and other islands in an attempt to take a coordinated approach. Although taking eggs and birds is bad enough, the additional problem is that the poachers can have a devastating effect on whole colonies of birds, by crushing and trashing all in other wildlife in their way.

Currently one of the missing links with this issue which I am particularly interested to try and improve, is work with the local schools. Much like in Somerset where we wanted to work with the children over peat extraction and nature reserve creation; here we want to work with them over poaching issues and reserve protection. I s’pose I shouldn’t be surprised that the children here are not aware of what is on their doorstep. At the moment the only children who know how special Aride is are the children of the rangers who are lucky enough to stay on the island during school holidays.

So we have already started the ball rolling and we have started to go into schools. I will be visiting two next week – the local primaries in Praslin and it would be excellent if by the time we leave we are able to get both Somerset and the Seychelles children talking to each other and exchanging tales from their very different life styles.