La Digue meets to plan Vev fight back |26 February 2007

The meeting was held at the La Digue District Administration, where 19 participants – including members of the La Digue Board, staff from the Vev Reserve, teachers, farmers and the member of the National Assembly for the Inner Islands – spent five hours looking at what action needs to be taken to increase understanding of the threats faced by the Vev and policies to help the endangered species fight back.

The Vev was once found on several of Seychelles’ inner islands, but is now limited to 200 birds on the La Digue plateau, causing growing concern amongst environmentalists that increased developments on the island could push the Vev past the point of extinction.

“This was the first chance for some of the key players and La Digue representatives to meet and debate the future of the Paradise Flycatcher, and to guide plans for the species restoration,” said Social Marketing Campaign Manager Terrence Vel.

Working from a list of the direct and indirect threats to the Vev, the meeting participants offered their suggestions on how to raise public awareness of the plight of the species and concrete steps which could be implemented to aid in its recovery.

 “We were pleased to hear that the responses of the participants closely mirrored measures carried out in other successful species restoration projects and which could conceivably be used to benefit the Vev as well,” said Mr Vel.

Based on the recommendations of the project stakeholders a survey has now been drawn up which will be circulated amongst people on La Digue, Mahé and Praslin to assess public knowledge of the Vev and the action necessary to increase its protection.

Once the results of the survey are in the same group will reconvene to analyse the findings and update the Vev rescue plan, likely to be in June.

“The survey will hopefully show us what we need to do to increase awareness of the threats faced by the Vev and how to do it,” said Mr Vel.

The project is being supported by Nature Seychelles, the Wildlife Club of Seychelles, the Department of Environment, DICE, RARE, the RSPB and Wildlife Vets.