NEWS AND INSIGHTS
ISLANDS
Biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution and expanding urbanisation are among the major environmental challenges faced by Humanity. Our current lifestyles and pace of living are sending biodiversity into an unprecedented decline. And islands such as Mauritius, while hosting high level of endemism and our world’s most threatened plants and animals, are particularly vulnerable to such threats.
Mauritius island as a conservation laboratory: a laboratory of hope
Mauritius is globally best known for the worldwide symbol of human-caused extinction: The Dodo. However, the island is also internationally known and acclaimed for remarkable conservation success stories. Mauritius is thus ideally positioned as a laboratory for conservation and play a role model to inform best practices on threatened tropical island taxa.
Mauritius in a glimpse:
Mauritius is one among the world’s 36 biodiversity hotspots. The island is home to unique fauna and flora. For example, Mauritius has:
Mauritius is also home to the rarest plant in the world and the rarest plant left in the wild.
The world as we know it is currently experiencing a global biodiversity loss and a sixth mass extinction episode. Species are disappearing too fast and in too large numbers. Mauritius is one of the last countries in the world to be colonized by men and is now, one of the most ecologically destroyed. Mauritius has less than 2 % of relatively good quality forest left, and even then these highly fragmented forested areas are threatened by invasive alien plant and animal species. Habitat destruction and introduction of invasive species onto the island, resulted in the rapid extinction of many plants and animals. So many extinctions disrupt interactions within the fragile Mauritian ecosystem, eventually leading to the collapse of the whole ecosystem.
