OPINION
IS IT CONSERVATION OVERKILL?
A recent news article (SBC the 26th May 2006) involving an interview with Officers from the Ministry of Environment caught my attention.
The Officer highlighted in the program that the Ministry of Environment is in the process of cultivating thousands of “boie jolie ceour” on Mahe, which will be transplanted on Praslin in the future. The Officer highlighted the fact that this species of tree was not endemic to Praslin.
The relative isolation of the
During my studies (some of which involved a thesis on small island conservation and development impact), it became very apparent that the best preserved island ecosystems are those which have as little impact of man or other introduced flora and fauna as possible. The idea of introducing new species into a region or island where they were not previously naturally growing or living is by its very nature, a disturbance to the set of species available and it is likely, to have negative consequences such as the introduction of new plant and animal diseases, proliferation of introduced species and consequent impacts on growth of other endemic species, changes in the food chain, impacts on all associated endemic biodiversity and removal to an extent of the relative uniqueness of the different islands flora and fauna.
Let us all work to maintain the uniqueness of each island in
Endemic to one
CONSERVATION CONSCIOUSNESS