World biodiversity day celebrations at SNPA |12 June 2017

Biodiversity refers to the variety of life that exist on earth. This year’s theme is ‘Biodiversity and sustainable tourism’.

Here in Seychelles our tourism sector depends heavily on our unique and rich biodiversity and a well-managed tourism sector like ours contributes significantly to reducing threats to, and maintaining or increasing biodiversity values through tourism revenue.

The Seychelles National Parks Authority (SNPA) is the guardian of some of the largest parts of the protected areas of the country, and therefore a major contributor to biodiversity conservation.

Last year the SNPA in collaboration with its partners organised a national ‘public presentation competition’ for all schools in the country. This year it diversified its activities to raise awareness on the country’s biodiversity.

On Friday May 12, 10 days before World Biodiversity Day was celebrated, seven well-known local artists were on Curieuse island to produce artwork based on the National Park’s biodiversity and attractions.

The artworks produced will be showcased on Mahe at Eden Art Gallery in November this year, to raise awareness on Curieuse National Park.

One key attraction which really caught their attention was the endemic Aldabra Giant Tortoise. The famous artists from ‘ProArt’ were mesmerised by the island’s uniqueness and they had so much to paint about. Since this year’s theme is ‘Biodiversity and Sustainable Tourism’, tourists visiting the island had the opportunity to produce their own artwork.

Since Monday May 22, SNPA staff have been going to crèche and primary schools to educate the kids about biodiversity through games, talks, art and craft.

And on Friday May 26, a group of students from the Maritime Training Academy (SMA) became ‘Explorers For A Day’. They explored the RAMSAR site ‒ the mangrove at Port Launay, where they managed to identify six out of the seven species. They also observed a variety of species such as a juvenile great barracuda.

The students learned about the importance of mangrove wetland. The exploration ended with snorkeling on the reef at Baie Ternay. The students had a great time and were happy to observe trumpet fish, butterfly fish, octopus and rays.

Contributed