Eden Aquarium to close down |02 September 2017

Barely two years since it opened with a lot of pomp, the Eden Aquarium is going to close down on September 10 this year, the owner, businessman Charles Savy has said.

Speaking to Seychelles NATION yesterday Mr Savy said since the first three months after it opened the aquarium has been running at a loss.

“From the first three months I realised that we cannot keep the aquarium open,” Mr Savy said.

Mr Savy affirmed he first sought help from the Ministry of Environment hoping to get some support from the Environment Trust Fund because the idea behind building the aquarium he said was to educate Seychellois who even though live in a place surrounded by the sea know very little or nothing about the ocean and marine life. But there was no luck as the minister himself told him his ministry had no money to help him.

“I then approached the ministry responsible for finance and the Blue economy and this was in January last year and the minister reassured me that the government will assist me and on the basis of this promise I continued to lose money and accumulate debts,” Mr Savy said.

He said discussion centred on financial support through purchase of tickets for pupils and their teachers which was a bare minimum to keep the aquarium open but this never materialised.

“We sacrificed our normal way of making a living through scuba diving charters to run the aquarium because we believed in the education aspect the aquarium would provide,” Mr Savy noted.

Tickets to visit the aquarium is R100 for all.

He pointed out that in spite of all the difficulties to remain afloat the aquarium continued to attract large groups of pupils and several thousands have visited so far.   

Mr Savy said last year the aquarium had a sponsorship from the STC which paid tickets for 1000 students but other than that no other support was forthcoming.

So far this year he said over 3500 children have visited and the financial situation is not good.

Mr Savy said last week he met several high officials from the government including from education,   environment, finance but the outcome has not been fruitful and no support is forthcoming so he has no choice but to close down the aquarium.

Asked what will happen with all the equipment Mr Savy said for over a year now he has been discussing with the ministry responsible for land for a plot to store his equipment and restart his scuba diving business and now store some of the aquarium equipment, but this also has not materialised and talks are still ongoing as his situation becomes more desperate.

“We really need a place to store our equipment and we would be grateful if the government will assist us with that as well,” Mr Savy lamented.

Mr Savy said he is really disappointed that nobody sees the importance to help sustain an educational tool like the aquarium, an attraction which ironically many Seychellois visit when they travel abroad.