Aldabra’s outer reef boundaries are to be extended for the island to become a completely protected area.

Plans to extend the outer reef boundaries of the atoll were revealed by the Seychelles Islands Foundation (SIF) in an article published by the Seychelles News Agency.

The SIF is a public trust established in 1979 and it manages the unique atoll.

The decision to extend the outer reef boundaries of the atoll was taken after a recently completed research concluded that part of it was not being protected by the existing one-kilometre special reserve boundary around the atoll.

The SIF was one of several non-governmental organisations, parastatal and private companies which received funding as part of a four-year project funded by the Global Environment Fund (GEF) which is administered by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to help in the establishment of new protected areas, and also to improve the management of existing terrestrial and marine protected areas in Seychelles.

For SIF, the focus was on renewing Aldabra’s management plan by evaluating the effectiveness of the protection programme already in place and assessing whether the area designated for protection back in 1979 was still relevant today.

A protected nature reserve declared a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) world heritage site in 1982, Aldabra is home to a population of endemic giant tortoises that is far greater than the 90,000-strong human population of Seychelles. A wide variety of birdlife, marine life and exotic species also call the islands their home.

The outcome of the research was presented last month during a symposium which gave details of two major projects funded and coordinated by the GEF and the UNDP in Seychelles.

Among the interesting findings was the fact that the total outer reef of Aldabra covers an area of 76.64 square kilometres, nearly twice the size of Praslin – the second largest granitic island of Seychelles.

It was further revealed that 3.5 square kilometres of this very important reef ecosystem fell outside the legal boundary of the special reserve.

Following this discovery, SIF chief executive, Dr Frauke Fleischer-Dogley, said the Seychelles government has given its approval for the boundaries of the Unesco heritage site to be extended.

“Even if we already had a map which shows where Aldabra is located and what existed in the lagoon, until now we had very sparse information on the outer reef structure and no understanding of the extent of the 11 habitat classes and finally the amazingly rich marine life of Aldabra is being monitored,” Dr Dogley told the Seychelles News Agency.

In its latest newsletter published earlier this week, SIF said the extended legal boundary will come into force next year.

Some of the other achievements of the project include the development of a programme to monitor the diversity and abundance of the different marine species living on the reefs.

This programme, SIF says, also provides a better understanding of an intact marine ecosystem in Seychelles, and how the reef changes in response to human or natural causes.

The project has also allowed the public trust to re-design its 16-year-old management plan that takes into account international best practices to ensure “an outcome-based instead of a processes-driven management plan”.

Meanwhile, humpback whales were spotted around Aldabra around the end of July. They had migrated thousands of kilometres north from the cold waters of the Antarctic to warmer waters in order to mate and breed.

SIF’s Aldabra scientific coordinator April Burt told the Seychelles News Agency that the humpbacks which frequent areas around Aldabra are the same group which migrates to the east African coast, southern and eastern Madagascar and the northern Mozambique channel islands.

Measuring up to 16 metres long and weighing up to 36 tonnes, the giant cetaceans feed on krill and small fish in the sub-Antarctic (and in the northern hemisphere, the sub-Arctic), and then make the long and arduous journey – up to 25,000 kilometres – up to warmer waters for the winter season in order to mate and calve.

Forrás: www.nation.sc