Many global conservation success-stories originate from Seychelles and Mauritius. Remarkably, however, propagating these much-needed skill-sets elsewhere doesn’t happen naturally, particularly across low-income and island nations. Building upon previous success, we will implement three flycatcher reintroductions, and via a newly-established regional ‘training hub’, galvanise skill-sharing between four Indian Ocean countries.
| Principal Investigator: | Dr Jim Groombridge |
|---|---|
| Co-Investigator: | Rachel Bristol |
| Project dates: | April 2016 – March 2019 |
| Funding: | Darwin Initiative (Defra) |
| Collaborators: | Seychelles National Parks Authority, Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, Dahari, Durrell Conservation Training Limited |
Building on Success
A previous Darwin-funded project on Seychelles (Project 15-009) reintroduced 23 critically-endangered Seychelles Paradise-Flycatchers from La Digue Island to Denis Island, successfully establishing a 2nd population alongside intensive habitat restoration.
That reintroduced population has grown to 70+ birds breeding in replanted and restored habitat. Seychelles’ Government wishes to replicate this success to additional islands to galvanise whole-island ecosystem restoration elsewhere and to secure the species’ down-listing. Elsewhere in the Indian Ocean, the Mascarene Paradise-Flycatcher on Mauritius is prioritised by MWF for habitat restoration and reintroduction. Combining these parallel intentions provides a novel, highly effective, collaborative opportunity for galvanising conservation success elsewhere and fostering much-needed skills-exchange across international boundaries.
Galvanising regional impact across the Indian Ocean
Low-income and island nations, such as Madagascar and Comoros, are less able to benefit from neighbourhood success, as a consequence of their poverty and isolation which, together with language barriers can profoundly limit skills-exchange opportunities. Fortuitously, an international conservation academy has recently been set up on Mauritius as a world-class ‘training hub’, providing a timely mechanism for facilitating regional/international impact.
Embracing both these opportunities this project will:
- Implement three flycatcher reintroductions on Seychelles and Mauritius, and facilitate network-building exchange-visits between Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles, linked to associated habitat/ecosystem restoration aspects of these and other ‘live’ field projects (all four countries host highly evolutionarily distinct endemic flycatchers and also have active recovery-programmes for several other threatened endemic species).
- Compliment this in-situ skill-sharing with regional capacity-building by funding citizens from Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles on Durrell Conservation Training Ltd’s Postgraduate Diploma in Endangered Species Recovery (at the newly-established conservation ‘training hub’ on Mauritius) and DICEs UK-based MSc in Conservation Science and Management.
Our dual approach, combining exchange of key conservation skill-sets and formal training, will build lasting capacity and crucial employment opportunities for LDC citizens.
