ISLAND CONSERVATION:-A brief history of exploitation on Aride |13 September 2004

He also refers to the fact that the landing was difficult, and could be made on only one beach, which remains the case today.  In his list of islands that could support families of settlers, Aride is not mentioned and so presumably it was considered of little economic value.

In 1868, when Dr. Perceval Wright visited Aride, he found the plateau had been cleared and was producing “good crops of cotton and excellent melons,” but apart from this agricultural endeavour he, like Malavois, found the island to be “little more than a collection of large rock,” although he does also mention the “countless myriads” of birds resident there.

The island was evidently still quite barren in 1883 when Marianne North, an intrepid Victorian botanical artist came here to paint and describes it as “that scorching island,” there being only “one big green tree,” a Badamier, under which everyone huddled for shade. 
Aride was never a blanket coconut plantation from beach to mountaintop, like so many other islands. Instead, it was the seabirds that were considered the main resource of Aride.
 
During Wright’s visit the men of his party captured and ate nearly two hundred fat young birds in two days. Marianne North recollected that the island’s proprietor was making very good money selling pies filled with seabird meat. 

During the Second World War, it was recorded that considerable numbers of Fouke or Wedge-tailed Shearwaters were being killed, dried and exported to Mahe, along with frigatebirds which were knocked off their roosts with long poles, and noddies which were caught in mid-air using string whips or sticks as the birds hovered around the island boats offshore. The war had no doubt given extra impetus to the exploitation of this resource. Restrictions on shipping meant the population of Seychelles suffered many privations.
 
From at least 1931, it was Aride’s harvest of sooty tern eggs that became the main source of income for its proprietors.  Between 1948 and 1967 a probable average of 171-173 cases were exported annually from Aride, and there was a peak of 312 cases, (or 225,000 eggs) harvested in 1954. In 1967, the Chenard family, owners of Aride, stopped commercial egg collection.
 
Aride was sold in January 1973 to Christopher Cadbury on behalf of the British-based conservation organisation, the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves (now the Royal Society for Wildlife Trusts).  In 1979 the Seychelles Government gave Aride Special Reserve Status.

Exploitation of Aride’s wildlife has ceased and the island now is a model of sustainable ecotourism managed by the local NGO, Island Conservation Society.

Island Conservation Society promotes the conservation and restoration of island ecosystems.