News and Blogs

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  • Research: Roaming seabirds need ocean-wide protection, research shows

    Unlike other oceans, which are known to have specific “hotspots” where predators, including seabirds, gather in large numbers to feed, the Indian Ocean lacks such concentrated feeding areas, a recent paper has revealed. This lack of hotspots is particularly concerning given the various threats seabirds face due to human activities.[…]

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  • Saya de Malha leaves for its third dFAD clean-up expedition

    (Seychelles Nation) The Saya de Malha vessel of the Seychelles Coast Guard (SCG) left Port Victoria yesterday afternoon for its third drifting Fishing Aggregate Devices (dFAD) expedition clean-up exercise in Seychelles territorial waters and shores of the outer islands. As customary since the first expedition in October 2022, students from Seychelles[…]

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Coming Soon!

Coral Aquaculture Facility!

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We have started work on the Assisted Recovery of Corals (ARC) facility to revolutionise our coral reef restoration process Learn more

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Implementing the SDGs

At Nature Seychelles we are committed to working with government, development partners and donors in implementing relevant actions, in particular, looking at certain goals where we can build on our existing strengths. Read more

Seychelles Wildlife

Natural environment of the Seychelles

Seychelles is a unique environment, which sustains a very special biodiversity. It is special for a number of different reasons. These are the oldest oceanic islands to be found anywhere...

Bird Watching

Seychelles is a paradise for birdwatchers, you can easily see the unique land birds, the important sea bird colonies, and the host of migrants and vagrants. Some sea bird...

Seychelles Black Parrot

Black Parrot or Kato Nwar in Creolee is brown-grey in colour, not truly black. Many bird experts treat it as a local form of a species found in Madagascar and...

Fairy Tern

The Fairy (or white) Tern is a beautiful bird seen on all islands in Seychelles, even islands like Mahe where they are killed by introduced rats, cats and Barn Owls....

Introduced Land Birds

A little over two hundred years ago, there were no humans living permanently in Seychelles. When settlement occurred, people naturally brought with them the animals and plants they needed to...

Native Birds

Although over 190 different species of bird have been seen on or around the central islands of Seychelles (and the number is increasing all the time), many of these are...

Migrant Shore Birds

Shallow seas and estuaries are very rich in invertebrate life. Many birds feed on the worms, crabs and shellfish in these habitats; often, they have long bills for probing sand...

Seychelles Magpie Robin

The most endangered of the endemic birds, Seychelles Magpie Robin or Pi Santez in Creole, came close to extinction in the late twentieth century; in 1970 there were only about...

Seychelles Blue Pigeon

The Seychelles Blue Pigeon or Pizon Olande in Creole, spends much of its life in the canopy of trees and eats the fruits of figs, bwa dir, ylang ylang and...

Seychelles White-eye

The Seychelles White-eye or Zwazo Linet in Creole, is rare and endemic. They may sometimes be seen in gardens and forest over 300m at La Misere, Cascade and a few...

Seychelles Black Paradise Flycatcher

The Seychelles Black Paradise Flycatcher or the Vev in Creole is endemic to Seychelles, you cannot find this bird anywhere else on earth. Although it was once widespread on...

Seychelles Sunbird

The tiny sunbird or Kolibri in Creole, is one of the few endemic species that has thrived since humans arrived in the Seychelles.

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Achievements

  • Stopped near extinctions of birds +

    Down-listing of the critically endangered Seychelles warbler from Critically Endangered to Near Threatened. Other Seychelles birds have also been saved including the Seychelles Magpie Robin, Seychelles Fody, and the Seychelles
  • Restored whole island ecosystems +

    We transformed Cousin Island from a coconut plantation to a thriving vibrant and diverse island ecosystem. Success achieved on Cousin was replicated on other islands with similar conservation activities.
  • Championed climate change solutions +

    Nature Seychelles has risen to the climate change challenge in our region in creative ways to adapt to the inevitable changing of times.
  • Education and Awareness +

    We have been at the forefront of environmental education, particularly with schools and Wildlife clubs
  • Sustainable Tourism +

    We manage the award-winning eco-tourism programme on Cousin Island started in 1970
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Seas turn Milky White

We were cruising somewhere in the Indian Ocean, two days shipping from Djibouti. Two of us were on the deck of the research vessel in the middle of the night because instruments had to be dropped into the ocean at regular intervals. It was then that we saw the sea turning almost milky white. The captain had seen such a phenomenon before but none of us had.  That was about 18 years ago and although we were all familiar with the bioluminescence common in the ocean we could not find out what was turning the seas milky.

Now satellite images of milky white seas in the Indian Ocean have been discovered by scientist  Steve Miller and his colleagues of the US Naval Research Laboratory. In a new publication, Miller and colleagues describe finding a sighting of milky white seas from a ship in the Indian Ocean in 1995 near Somalia. They then looked for satellite images taken of this area at the time. The images did capture the event, and subsequent analyses showed that the glowing water covered 15,400 square kilometers. The milky white glow continued for three nights but it moved with the currents.

A large population of glowing bacteria called Vibrio harveyi, which live together with microscopic algae, probably generated the soft, white light. This phenomenon is known as bioluminescence. This is light produced through chemical reactions in an organism. Quite a few organisms produce bioluminescent, some on land such as fungi and fireflies both of which are found in Seychelles, but mostly in the sea.

At sea bioluminescence is a common occurrence in the bow wave and wake of a ship The usually greenish or bluish, iridescent glow is caused by tiny organisms called dinoflagellates, which are single celled algae. The algae are mechanically excited by the passage of ships to produce chemical reactions leading to light. Bioluminescence is a fascinating phenomenon and it is the only source of light in the deep ocean. It usually does not exist in freshwater areas.

The milky white sea is not a common occurrence and until now it was not known what caused it. There have been accounts from sailor for many years but no one had investigated it. The scientists say that as satellite technology gets more sophisticated they hope to be able to detect milky seas as they happen and then can actually go to the area and find out what is going on. You can help as well. Anybody who has seen this phenomenon around Seychelles can call me with the details so I can send the information to the American researchers working on it.


By Nirmal Jivan Shah, published on the People Newspaper, Seychelles on 6th October 2005.

Partners & Awards

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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