DÉCOUVERTE
“ Mauritius is one of the most ecologically devastated places in the world,” says the biologist Vincent Florens. How did both of you get involved in conservation? Mary-Ann: Owen is an Australian biologist. We met there, and returned to Mauritius in 1984. Owen: We set up Bioculture Ltd, where we breed monkeys for biomedical research and crocodiles. We have always felt, morally, that we should give something back to nature if we were making a living from nature. As things developed, we became more involved with conservation for the sake of conservation. Mary-Ann: We have a brilliant team at our side- Dr. Christine Griffiths( no relation!) is the Conservation Project Manager at Ebony Forest, for instance. She worked for the Mauritius Wildlife Foundation for a decade. Owen: Our conservation efforts are also evolutionary, in the sense that when we started La Vanille Crocodile Park we began by breeding giant tortoises. We never thought about Rodrigues. We were so successful in breeding these tortoises, that we started thinking about what we could do with all of them – and Rodrigues felt like the right place( NB: when Francois Leguat first arrived in Rodrigues in 1691, he famously noted that there were so many tortoises on Rodrigues that one can take more than a hundred steps on their shells without touching the ground. Due to the island’ s ecological devastation, many of those tortoises had disappeared). We then recreated the original ecosystem on the island, in the François Leguat Giant Tortoise Reserve.
How did Ebony Forest come about? Owen: I am very interested in land snails. A third of land snails in the Mascarenes are extinct, a third are critically endangered. Their extinction is caused by the usual things – destruction of forest, invasive species. I started questioning the reasons for their habitat loss, which brought us to Mauritian native forests and what to do about them. We acquired our first block of forest fifteen years or so, in La Vallée de l’ Est, and we have been busy restoring the forest since then. Restoration involves two things: removing the weed species, and replanting native species that we grow in our nurseries. We acquired Ebony Forest( in Chamarel) in 2006, and along with our restoration efforts, we have turned it into a site of eco-tourism and education( with programmes catering to different age groups). Mary-Ann: A vital step is getting the seedlings from the forest, those that will not develop there since they get eaten by all the introduced animals. We take the seedlings and grow them in their hundreds, and once they’ re ready, we replant them.( NB: since 2006, they’ ve weeded over 13 hectares and grown over 130,000 indigenous plants).
Owen et Mary-Ann Griffiths à Ebony Forest à Chamarel Owen and Mary-Ann Griffiths at the Ebony Forest in Chamarel © Kathleen Minerve
And what of Madagascar? Owen: We set up our NGO there in 2003, to support conservation efforts. We work with local communities to protect two threatened forests, Beanka and Sahafina. Mary-Ann: There are indigenous primates in Madagascar. We wanted to give back to the primates there – and they’ re in grave danger. Owen: Logging and hunting are illegal in Madagascar, but these laws are poorly enforced. But if you have presence, and you have the local community involved in protecting the forests, then that dissuades people who want to carry out illegal activities. Mary-Ann: Because of the poverty levels in Madagascar, you really have to look at the way people live. You need to give them alternatives, advice on growing their own food ¬– raising chickens, for instance. You empower them in that way. Those who work for us are often gaining a salary for the first time in their lives. Owen: And now we want to reintroduce Aldabra giant tortoises in Madagascar, too, in our Sokatra Be(‘ Giant Tortoise’ in Malagasy) reserve in Beanka. We are also working to save the angonoka tortoises, a criticallyendangered species heavily prized by poachers because of their projecting gular scutes. When the tortoises are rescued, instead of bringing them back to Madagascar( it is difficult to manage them there), we give them a home in our reserve in Rodrigues, which is now the international rescue centre for the species.
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