Cousin Island, a conservation success story

Peering down from its nesting site up in a tree, a lesser noddy looks down on visitors to Cousin Island. Used as a coconut plantation in the 18th century, an ecological restoration program has made it a model of conservation.

Staff and volunteers of the non-governmental organization Nature Seychelles set out to pick up visitors to Cousin Island. The International Council for the Protection of Birds - now known as Birdlife International - purchased the island in 1968, and Nature Seychelles now manages it as a conservation area.

Cousin island was purchased to save the Seychelles warbler from extinction. But thanks to the restoration program, this Seychelles fody - another bird that only exists on the archipelago - can also live without fear on Cousin. It survives today only on the five rat-free islands of the 115 total that make up the Seychelles archipelago.

The two-kilometer journey to Cousin from the Seychelles' second-largest island of Praslin makes for a bumpy ride across the sea. For the last stretch of the voyage, visitors have to leave their tour boats and hop onto a Nature Seychelles boat in order to assure that no alien species like rats accidentally arrive on Cousin.

Tourists may visit Cousin Island on weekdays between 10 a.m. and midday only. Around 10,000 come per year, with their entry fee of roughly 30 euros ($38) supporting Nature Seychelles staff and volunteers. Lately, the number of Chinese and Russian visitors to Cousin and other Seychelles islands has been on the rise. It has traditionally drawn mainly British, French and German tourists.

Restoration of the original vegetation has created plentiful habitat for native avian species. Birds are everywhere on Cousin, whether up in the sky, like these white or fairy terns ...

... or down on the ground, like this chick of a white-tailed tropicbird. The seabird species can be found across many tropical oceans and on almost every of Seychelles' islands. It breeds most successfully on islands that are free of predators, as it nests on the ground at the base of trees.

The Seychelles magpie robin was close to extinction some 40 years ago. But in 2005, thanks to an active conservation program, this endemic bird was downgraded from "critically endangered" to "endangered" on the Red List of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Aside from being a bird paradise, Cousin is also the most important breeding site for Hawksbill turtles in the western Indian Ocean. A few tortoise species also roam the island - the original home for the species of giant tortoise pictured here is the remote Aldabra atoll. Since they can live to be up to 200 years old, the 12 tortoises on Cousin take the tourists' visits in their (slow) stride.

The bronze-eyed gecko is endemic to Seychelles, and Cousin Island hosts many. After the island was bought for conservation, growth of coconut palms was gradually controlled, giving native plants more space. This, and the absence of rats and mice, have allowed native animals like this gecko to flourish.

Ghost crabs are neither endemic to Seychelles, nor in any way endangered. They dominate the sandy shores in many tropical and subtropical areas. But for those visitors who can manage to take their eyes off the birds for a bit, the crabs are fun to watch as they scurry across the ground, stopping to glance at visitors as if daring them to follow.

Off the coast of Cousin, a tour operator's boat waits for visitors to finish their one-and-a-half hour tour of the island and be returned by Nature Seychelles staff. On Cousin itself, there is no accommodation. Most visitors come over from Praslin, located 44 kilometers from the main island of Mahé. Ecotourism looks to be one route to assure Cousin Island's continued conservation.