Marine and Terrestrial Conservation Programmes in the Seychelles

Facts and figures

GVI Seychelles has surveyed 18 reefs every three months for the last eight years as well as conducting plankton tows, turtle monitoring, whale shark observations, certation sightings and logging all Megafarna observed during dives
12 Marine Park rangers have been trained in fish and Coral ID.
Contributed eight years of unbroken coral monitoring and recruitment data as well as eight years of fish biodiversity data to the Seychelles National Parks Authority. Adding this to the existing previous four years of data we now have an unbroken twelve year data set on the reefs of North west Mahe an almost unprecedented length of time for a reef monitoring program
Approximately 1000 volunteers have passed through GVI Seychelles over the last eight years. All have been trained in coral reef monitoring techniques either learning to identify 47 genre of coral species or 140 fish species
The data collected by GVI Seychelles is used by Government organisations and is the main contribution from the region to the biannual publication of “The Sate of Coral Reefs of The Indian Ocean”

Friday, April 22, 2011

22/04/2011 Cap Ternay Celebrates Dive For Earth Day

On Thursday April 22^nd volunteers and staff from the GVI Seychelles Cap Ternay base and members of the Seychelles National Parks Authority teamed up to celebrate Dive For Earth Day.

Since 1999 the Project AWARE Foundation has been organizing activities and encouraging people with an interest in the marine environment to promote underwater conservation in their local areas.

At Cap Ternay the day commenced with a beach clean along three of the beaches adjacent to the expedition base. Staff, volunteers and SNPA staff scoured the shorelines and managed to collect 9 large bags of rubbish.

The most common item found was plastic drinking bottles, followed by food wrappers and shoes. Prize for the strangest find went to a street lamp located within the mangroves. During the course of the clean-up we also managed to release one giant crab that was tangled in some discarded netting.

Following the beach cleans we took to the water to undertake a reef clean up while the SNPA installed two new mooring buoys within the marine park. The installation of the buoys should discourage people from dropping anchor within the bay and protect the fragile coral colonies located there.

We are happy to report that very little in the way of trash was located underwater but all that we did find was safely removed.

The day was a great success and a huge thank you goes out to everyone involved.