Reunion Island

The Forests

It was not for nothing that a long forgotten English buccaneer named the island "England's Forest" in the 17th century, nor that the French once called it the Isle of Eden. In 1649 Étienne de Flacourt described the island as a terrestrial paradise in his work on the Island of Madagascar. Before the coming of the flightless biped, and the extinction of another, Reunion Island was a true green paradise. Today, it is one of the world's 25 biodiversity hotspots.

Its history of human occupation reflects that of Mauritius where, today, only two percent of the primordial forest remains. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Reunion was seen as the poor peasant cousin of Mauritius and this, fortunately, was the cause of its "underdevelopment" and the protection of a greater part of its forests - some 40% of the island's surface area is today protected to some degree. However, this was more by accident than design due to the island's topography and the first real steps to protect the island's ecosystem weren't really taken until 1958 and the creation of a 21 hectare national reserve at "Mare Longue" in the south of the island.

Even if Herbert Delisle in 1853 had first sounded the alarm at the rapid destruction of the island's habitat, thousands of hectares were to be destroyed in the production of cash crops for the fat belly of Europe - coffee, spices, and eventually sugar. This is to say nothing of the many species of birds and insects that once inhabited these forests.

It is the work of one man, Thérésien Cadet, who has done the most to raise awareness, study and protect the rich natural heritage of Reunion Island. Cadet was professor at the University of La Réunion and founder of the Laboratory of Vegetal Biology, and the first person who made a comprehensive study of the forest at Mare Longue. In the early 1970's, during the preliminary investigations for his PhD, he drew the attention of the forest managers to the importance of conserving this unique jewel of Réunion's natural heritage.

Today the ONF (the French Forestry Commission) manages >100,000 hectares of forest, some 40% of the island's surface area. It works in collaboration with SREPEN (Local association for the protection of the environment), the University and the Museum of Natural History for the creation and enlargement of natural preserves.

Today, there are eleven natural reserves on the island and a recent study (2002) has proposed an intense and on-going conversation plan. It notes, that whilst Reunion is the better preserved of the three Mascarene islands it faces huge environmental problems. >>>

"...One habitat, the lowland savanna, has almost gone and only a few individual trees remain. Two others, the lowland dry forest and the subalpine Sophora thicket, have less than 1% of their original distribution intact. Only two habitats remain unaffected by invasion: the Pandanus mountain wet thicket and the subalpine shrubland, high up on the mountains.

Some habitat types, such as the subalpine herbland, are largely invaded but not transformed while others, such as Philippia mountain thicket, have been transformed but fortunately not invaded. La Réunion is also the last of the Mascarene Islands with large areas of untransformed forest..."

For an overview of the problems facing the biodiversity of the region read the review here.

The Flora

Although Reunion cannot compete with the great rain forests of the tropics it does give a home to some 800 indigenous species of plants and trees. Much of the flora is similar to that of Madagascar and East Africa and, to a lesser degree, that of Asia and Oceania.

Considerable damage was done to the islands ecosystem from the beginning of colonisation in the 17th century. The forests, in particular those at low altitude and on the coast were all but destroyed. One other problem has been the introduction, intentional or accidental, of 'alien' plant species that, in some cases, have rapidly taken over from indigenous species and hindered greatly the natural regrowth of the indigenous forests.In areas where the forest has been destroyed invasive plants have taken over completely. The flora is now dominated by 2 000 introduced species of which about 628 are naturalised and 62 highly invasive. The most invasive are the "goyavier", from Brazil, several varieties of "fuschia", from Chile, the "Bringélier", from Brazil, and the "Vigne-Marronne" from South-east Asia. For an up to date listing of alien plants see this document.

The Fauna

For an island in mid ocean the fauna tends to be small and has suffered a similar fate to that of the flora - except in this case it was mostly all eaten! A reported 30 out of 45 native terrestrial vertebrates have become extinct since European occupation of the island. Disappointing as it maybe, the Dodo was not thought to have inhabited this island although a similar turkey like bird did and suffered the same fate as its cousin on Mauritius. Before the arrival of the "Faunacator", there were thirty species of birds, six of reptiles, one of which was a giant tortoise, five species of bats and an infinite number of insects. Most of the indigenous fauna was devoured in the 17th century when Reunion was a stopping off point for ships on the long voyage from the Cape to India and Asia. Today, the indigenous fauna is to be found mainly in the forests as the agricultural and urban areas reflect the imprint of humankind and the species that they have introduced.

The Forests

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