Party to:	Convention	Protocols
	Signature:	22 June 1985	22 June 1985
	Ratification:	20 June 1990	-

Country Profile

The Seychelles archipelago (4-11°S and 45-56°E) is found in the Western Indian Ocean. It s made up of 115 islands and islets with a total terrestrial area of 445 km2 and Exclusive Economic Zone of 1.3 million km2 (Fig. 1, 2).

The population was calculated at 82,900 (NSB, 2006) at the end of 2005. The per capita GDP for that same year was estimated at US$ 9,100. It is estimated that 90% of the population is concentrated on the narrow coastal strips around the 3 main islands of Mahe, Praslin and La Digue (Shah, 1993). With a land area of 148 km2, Mahé makes up about one third of the total land area of the Seychelles. The narrow coastal belt on the East Coast of Mahe from Victoria to the International Airport, which measures about 7 km long by 1 km wide, inhabits approximately 40% of the population.

The economy is highly dependent on tourism and fisheries and as a result is highly reliant on the state of the marine and terrestrial environment.

The archipelago has 2 distinctive groups of islands. 41 high granitic islands are found in the northern part of the archipelago. The granitic islands are located on the Seychelles Bank, which forms the northern arc of the Mascarene Ridge (Israelson & Wohlfarth, 1999). The remaining 74 islands are of coralline origin. They are mainly located in the south and southeast of the archipelago.

All of the granitic islands are found within a radius of 50 km from the main island of Mahé where the capital is found and where most of the population lives. The granitic islands are of Precambrian age (650 million years old) and were created 135 million years ago during the break-up of Gondwanaland (ref). The coralline islands are about 125 million years old and were formed during the period of last reef formation (ref). The islands are tectonically stable.

Seychelles has a warm and humid climate with strong marine influence due to its tropical and oceanic location. The climate is primarily controlled by 4 factors comprising of: the monsoonal wind shifts, the south Indian Ocean sub-tropical anticyclone, seasonal migration of inter-tropical troughs and currents and sea surface temperature of the South Indian Ocean (Walsh, 1984).

The Seychelles is often considered to be coastal zone its entirety as a result of its small size and homogeneity (Shah, 1995). The islands have a total coastline of about 600 km and no single point of land is more than 4 km from the sea.

Coastal Ecosystems

a) Overview of geographical extent of the marine habitats

Coral reefs in the Seychelles have an estimated cover of 1,690 km2 of which only 40 km2 are found around the inner islands. Reef width is usually narrow around the inner islands and wide around some of the southern coralline islands. The extent of seagrass beds is yet to be determined. It is well known that there are large ecologically important seagrass beds throughout the Seychelles islands.

b) Coastal Terrestrial habitats

The coastal plateau is made up of calcareous sand derived from adjacent fringing reefs which have accumulated over the last 6,000 years. These coastal plateau have been colonised by coastal plants such as coconut (Cocos nucifera), takamaka (Calophyllum inophyllum) and badamier (Terminalia catappa).

c) Mangrove forests and coastal wetlands

Out of the 10 species of mangrove described from the East African region (Semesi, 1997), 8 naturally occur in the Seychelles occupying a total area of 29 km2 (Spalding et al., 2001). The 8 species are Rhizophora mucronata, Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, Ceriops tagal, Sonneratia alba, Lumnitzera racemosa, Avicennia marina and Xylocarpus granatum and Xylocarpus moluccensis. Though all 8 species are fairly common on most of the Seychelles granitic islands, there is only one location (Port Launay, Mahe) where all 8 species are found together.

d) Coral Reefs

The coral reefs of the Seychelles have an estimated cover of 1,690 km2 (Spalding et al., 2001). Most of these coral reef areas are found in the South East of the Seychelles Archipelago, around the outer coralline islands, with only 40 km2 of the reefs being found in the inner granitic islands (Jennings et al., 2000). There are 2 main types of reefs: granite reefs, which are made up of corals growing over large granite boulders, and carbonate reefs which are further divided into fringing reefs, atolls and platform reefs (Stoddart, 1984).

Source

• Seychelles National Status Report on the Marine and Coastal Environment

Status Report

Draft Status Report on the Coastal and Marine environment of Seychelles.
English

National Focal Points

Mr. Jason Jacqueline Director Waste Management and Pollution Control, Department of Environment, Botanical Garden, P.O. Box 1153 Victoria, Seychelles Tel: 248-225713, 248225121, Fax:248-225954 E-mail j.jac@pps.gov.sc

The focal points institutions have been supported to operationalise their offices and to initiate a reporting mechanism for the Convention by compiling national status reports on the coastal and marine environment. Read More..

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