Seychelles proposes new way to monitor island ecosystems |20 October 2008

Dr Justin Gerlach of the NPTS presented the idea at the 4th World Conservation Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature held in Barcelona, Spain, from October 5-9.

This was the largest meeting of conservationists ever held, with 7,800 delegates from almost every country in the world and 800 different events taking place.

The impact of global changes – especially climate change – on small islands was well to the fore, and the NPTS organised one of the events, a workshop called Island biodiversity – issues and a new initiative for conservation and research.
 
During the session, which highlighted the issues facing islands using examples from Seychelles, the Galapagos islands and Ascension island, Dr Gerlach proposed a system to track the changes taking place on islands due to development pressures, invasive species and climate change.
 
The idea will be of global interest as the small size of islands means the effects of global change, climate change in particular, will be felt by islands before the rest of the world.

Climate change in Seychelles was included in a second presentation from the NPTS. This was a session called Small is beautiful – conserving the animals that run the world, which focused on invertebrate conservation.

The effects of climate change on invertebrates were described, including changes on sea-grass beds and coastal marshes in Seychelles and the extinction of two species of snail due to changes in the weather.

The Aldabra banded snail Rachistia aldabrae disappeared in 1997, and on Mahe the snail Pachnodus velutinus became extinct in 1994 after changes in the mist forest.

Everyone at the World Conservation Congress agreed that we will see many more of these changes and extinctions every year from now on.

Contributed by the Nature Protection Trust of Seychelles