New book on Vallée de Mai launched |28 July 2017

‘Vallée de Mai (Seychelles) - A primeval palm forest, a Nature Reserve and a Unesco Heritage Site’ is the title of a new book about the Vallée de Mai that has just been published.

The book recounts the history of the garden, originally a river reserve for water protection and goes in depth of the various species who find habitat in it.

Last week, stakeholders from Praslin, witnessed the official launch of this new book authored by Steen G Hansen accompanied by Praslin’s well known environmentalist Victorin F. Laboudallon.

The official launch took place at the Vallée de Mai itself and for that special occasion, autographed copies of the book could be purchased at a reduced price.

This is the third in a series of books from the collaborative work of these two authors over the past three years.

The book, which took approximately two months to finalise, comprises many photos and clear descriptive texts in a bigger font than usual for similar books, in order to target maximum audience and easily be used as a souvenir of guests’ trip to the Vallée de Mai. Printing was done in Denmark, in order to guarantee a nice, glossy front cover for the protection of the manuscript as well as the possibility of including a map of the garden on the back cover.

“We did try to print locally but we could not get the final product that we would have wished for. So we had to send abroad for printing and we are very satisfied with the outcome,” Mr Hansen shared.

On behalf of the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change, Shirley Joubert shared her gratefulness for the devotion and hard work that the authors have invested in this project and the author’s contribution towards the conservation and restorative work of the Seychelles environment. “We have followed with great enthusiasm your new publishing works over these past couple of years and we are happy that such a wealth of knowledge is being appropriately documented for the information of our future generation. It testifies to the hard work that has been invested in protecting this world heritage site. The Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change fully endorses this publication and will continue to support such initiatives in the future,” Ms Joubert shared.

The book is on sale at the Unesco World Heritage Site itself and in other local book shops.

The accompanying photos show highlights of the launch ceremony.

Text: Nadia Bedier

Photos: Romano Laurence