United Nations
Mauritius & Seychelles
World Environment Day · 5 June 2025
Two Islands, One Ocean.
scroll
United Nations
Mauritius & Seychelles
World Environment Day · 5 June 2025
For World Environment Day 2025, the UN in Mauritius and Seychelles spotlights two Small Island Developing States bound by one ocean.
Custodians of vast exclusive economic zones and globally significant biodiversity, both nations carry responsibilities that reach far beyond their shores — for ocean governance, climate resilience, and species found nowhere else.
This feature is about that shared stewardship, and why it has to hold.
National symbols speak the same language as the landscape — colours pulled from sea, forest, and sky.
Each flag carries its own constitutional meaning. Together they map a shared Indian Ocean identity where land, sea, and people are inseparable.
Adopted 1996 · Five oblique bands
Adopted 1968 · Four horizontal bands
Ocean animals of Seychelles & Mauritius
Aldabra Atoll and Bird Island are among the Western Indian Ocean's most important green turtle nesting sites. Critically endangered hawksbills return to the same beaches year after year.
Aldabra Atoll is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of Earth's best-protected marine ecosystems.
Both species nest on Mauritius' offshore islands, including Île aux Aigrettes. Young greens graze the seagrass of Blue Bay Marine Park; hawksbills patrol the reefs, keeping coral healthy.
Resident year-round around Mahé and Praslin — sociable, intelligent, and often seen riding the bow waves of inter-island boats.
Tamarin Bay on the southwest coast is famous for wild spinner dolphin pods that visit every morning. It's one of Mauritius' most magical wildlife experiences, but one under growing pressure from tourism.
Regular sightings off Mahé's west coast and near St Anne Marine Park. These gentle giants filter-feed on plankton blooms, gliding calmly near the surface.
Seasonal sightings off Rivière Noire on Mauritius' west coast. Both countries fully protected whale sharks under national law in the 2010s, a rare win for ocean policy.
The "living fossil", thought extinct for sixty-five million years, discovered in deep waters near Seychelles and the Comoros. It has barely changed in four hundred million years.
Amphiprion chrysogaster lives only on the reefs of Mauritius, Réunion and the Mascarene Plateau, found nowhere else on Earth. Each fish spends its whole life paired with a single host anemone, defending it fearlessly despite being barely 10 cm long.
Flora & forests of Seychelles & Mauritius
Found only on Praslin and Curieuse, the world's largest seed at up to 25kg. A female palm takes 6–7 years to mature its nut. Early sailors thought it grew on the ocean floor.
Native to Round Island north of Mauritius, one of the rarest palms on Earth. Its swollen bulging trunk is unmistakable. Critically endangered in the wild, it's a symbol of conservation urgency.
Mahé's east coast holds Seychelles' most significant mangrove zones. These tangled root systems shelter juvenile fish, filter water, protect coastlines, and store carbon.
Mauritius has mangrove zones along its north and east coasts. Active national replanting programmes are underway, both islands understand their coasts depend on these forests.
Found only on a few granite slopes of Mahé, Medusagyne oppositifolia was thought extinct until rediscovered in 1970. Its odd jellyfish-shaped fruit gives the tree its name, and fewer than 90 mature individuals remain in the wild.
Mauritius' most exported bloom, the glossy heart-shaped flower grown in the cool highland mist near Curepipe. Over 2 million exported annually. You've probably seen one without knowing.
Geology, where the two islands couldn't be more different
Seychelles' white sand is almost entirely crushed coral and marine organism fragments, the reef, recycled by waves over millennia. No healthy reef means no beach. They're the same thing.
Mauritius is almost completely encircled by a fringing coral reef, cradling 150 km² of shallow turquoise lagoon. Its white beaches, Flic en Flac, Belle Mare, Blue Bay, are crushed coral too, born from the same reef that calms the surf.
Eight environmental themes. One fact at a time. Spin the wheel and see what lands.
Drag each clue onto its matching answer — or tap a clue, then tap the answer.
Found only on La Digue. The male has a cobalt-black tail longer than its own body, used to attract mates in the forest undergrowth. Population: under 3,000. Conservation pulled it back from the brink.
Mauritius only
In 1987, fewer than 12 individuals remained, the world's rarest parrot. Through sustained breeding programmes, the population now exceeds 750. Only found in Black River Gorges National Park.
Four survivors from a forgotten ark. Each was minutes from joining the dodo, and each was pulled back by decades of patient, stubborn human effort.
The dodo (Raphus cucullatus) lived only in Mauritius. Flightless, trusting, and unprepared for sailors, rats, pigs and cleared forests, it was gone within 80 years of human arrival, extinct by ~1681.
It is the most famous extinction in history, and the warning behind every species above. Conservation isn't sentiment, it's the only thing standing between the kestrel, the pigeon, the skink, the boa and the same fate.
Reefs and turtles get the headlines. The deeper story runs through trenches, mangroves, landfills, and plants that learned to live with salt.
The Mascarene Plateau, shared by both nations, is a submerged microcontinent the size of France — seamounts that concentrate pelagic life.
The Saya de Malha Bank holds the world's largest known seagrass meadow. Seychelles' Aldabra Trench drops past 5,000 m into a frontier still being mapped.
Mangroves and seagrass do the unglamorous work — Mauritius' Le Morne belts buffer cyclone surge; Seychelles' Port Launay Ramsar site safeguards a near-pristine system.
Per hectare, they lock in four times the carbon of tropical rainforest, and nurse nearly every reef fish that later feeds artisanal fisheries.
Small islands can't bury their way out. Mauritius' Mare Chicose landfill hit capacity years ago; Seychelles' Providence site faces the same wall.
The harder load arrives by current. The South Equatorial Current dumps plastic from a dozen countries onto Aldabra — beaches no tourist has ever set foot on.
Tourism funds much of conservation on both islands — and stresses the very ecosystems it protects.
Mauritius hosts ~1.4M visitors a year; Seychelles, 350,000+. Concentrated in small, sensitive coastal zones, that pressure shows up as freshwater stress, waste loads, and reef wear.
Both nations are responding with expanded marine protected areas, eco-certification, and tighter visitor-impact rules.
Seychelles runs the SSTL certification: 60+ properties meet strict water, waste, energy and community standards. Marine-park fees fund patrols and coral restoration.
Mauritius is expanding eco-certification and carrying-capacity limits at hotspots like Île aux Cerfs. A tourist tax now funnels revenue into environmental management.
The direction on both islands: from volume to value. Fewer all-inclusives, more local guides and citizen science.
Millions of years of isolation engineered odd solutions. Vacoas grip the ground with stilt roots that shrug off cyclones; Mauritius' bois de fer grew ironwood-dense to survive thin volcanic soils.
On Seychelles' granite peaks, the pitcher plant Nepenthes pervillei traps insects to compensate for poor soil. Once gone, none of these come back.
By the numbers · Field data
Seychelles' exclusive economic zone, 3,000× larger than its landmass, now under marine spatial planning.
Mauritius and Seychelles have both pledged to protect 30% of their territorial waters by 2030.
Combined endemic flora and fauna found nowhere else on Earth, from coco de mer palms to pink pigeons.
Tourism and fisheries, both ecosystem-dependent, anchor a quarter of each island economy.
United Nations · Sustainable Development Goals
The biodiversity of Seychelles and Mauritius doesn't live in isolation, it lives inside a global agenda. These are the SDGs our two nations carry most visibly on their shoulders.
Learn more at sdgs.un.org · #BeatPlasticPollution · #WorldEnvironmentDay
Join the SOSF D'Arros team in 2026 for an immersive internship on one of the Indian Ocean's most pristine islands — supporting marine research, reef monitoring and seabird conservation.
Apply for 2026 →Volunteer or apply for fieldwork roles across Seychelles' protected islands — restoring native habitats, monitoring endemic species and protecting nesting seabirds.
See jobs & volunteering →Research, restore and educate communities on Mauritius' coastal and marine resources. Volunteer for beach cleanups, lagoon monitoring and school outreach programmes.
Volunteer with Reef Conservation →Join ongoing coral restoration, mangrove planting and St. Brandon archipelago missions with the Odysseo Foundation's volunteer corps in Port Louis. Rolling intake throughout the year.
Sign up to volunteer →Symbolically adopt a piece of coral from Eco-Sud's nursery, advocate for the Environmentally Sensitive Areas Bill, or book a guided eco-tour of the south coast.
Get involved with Eco-Sud →Founded by Mauritians in 2021. Restores native habitats and empowers communities across Mauritius, Madagascar and the Comoros. Volunteer or partner with them.
Discover Natir →Plant endemic coastal trees, restore mangroves and support coral & seagrass programmes around Le Morne, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Family-friendly volunteer days throughout the year.
Join a planting day →Both islands are frontline climate states. Small islands, outsized courage. Here's how to be part of the story.
