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Science—even the science of our planet and all the creatures that inhabit it—can suffer from obscurity. Large-scale or long-term projects can end up making generalizations or focusing on results and outputs, and failing to share the learned expertise of the people doing the day-to-day work. But the reality is that there are people who spend their lives in the field, on islands, reefs, and the ocean, working to preserve and restore biodiversity. Often, these individuals work in relative anonymity and isolation, but their actions can provide a model for conservationists everywhere.
Vikash Tatayah and Jeremy Raguain are two such people. Tatayah is the conservation director of the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation and has been working in conservation for more than 26 years. His projects have led to the successful reintroduction of several endemic bird and reptile species on Mauritius.
Raguain is from the Seychelles Island Foundation, and is also pursuing a masters in public administration and environmental science at Columbia University. Raguain previously served on the Seychelles’ permanent mission to the United Nations’ climate and ocean advisor.
We spoke to them about their sources of inspiration and how action can truly speak louder than words.
Could you tell me a bit about what you’re doing in Mauritius?
Vikash Tatayah: I’m at the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, and we have been involved in restoring and rewilding sites in Mauritius and the island of Rodrigues for more than 40 years. We’ve been involved in rewilding many sites but one that I want to talk about in more detail is Ile aux Aigrettes, which is a small island of just 66 acres around 1,900 feet off the southeast coast of Mauritius.
This island was important for us because it had an original forest of hardwoods—a lowland coastal forest that has gone extinct everywhere else and only survives in good numbers on this island. It has a history of human use—in the 1800s people cut corals and chopped down the hardwoods to fuel settlements. In World War II, the British had an establishment on the island to try and keep the Japanese from invading Mauritius. And in the 1960s and 1970s, the Mauritian military used the island for many military exercises.
By the time we got involved with the island, there were rats, cats, Asian shrews, iguanas, and more on the island, as well as a host of invasive alien plants. Two of the worst are the false acacia and the Madagascar plum. We started by getting rid of the rats and the cats and we’ve tried to reduce the numbers of the Asian shrews and other species, too. We also started removing the invasive plants and putting back the native vegetation. We have a nursery on the island and we grow between 55 and 60 species of endemic plants to put back on the island and help the plants that were there restore themselves.
Our best defense to a crisis is a healthy and resilient environment.
And how’s that going?
Tatayah: After years of work, we have forests now, and we have been able to bring back critically endangered endemic birds of Mauritius, such as the pink pigeon, the Mauritius fody, and the olive white-eye. Bringing these birds back to the island has meant they are considered to be in less danger of extinction than before. And aside from the birds, we brought back the Gunther’s gecko and Telfair skinks.
All of this work is ultimately good for species that have survived somewhere, albeit threatened. But for species that have gone completely extinct, like the Mauritius giant tortoise, we have looked for surrogate species. In this case, we chose the Aldabra giant tortoise, which comes from the island of Aldabra in the Seychelles. It has worked so well, we’ve also put the tortoises on other islands and on the mainland.
How do you get native species to return to these islands?
Tatayah: Getting rid of rats and cats doesn’t mean seabirds return on their own. We’ve done a project where we were rearing the chicks of six species of seabirds and we’ve been trying to attract a population of seabirds back to the island, using recorded seabird sounds. Seabirds are so important to the health of the island and the marine environment.
How do you get your average Joe invested in these sorts of projects?
Tatayah: We opened the island for ecotourism in 1998, and we now have thousands of visitors that come and generate money for the Foundation. We also opened the island up for education in 2009, and set up the Learning With Nature program so thousands of children can come, many of them for free, every year and learn about biodiversity and hopefully get involved in conservation.
We essentially thought everything that could be done to rewild Ile aux Aigrettes had been done. But in 2020, we had an oil spill just a mile from the island. So for several months, our work got diverted to saving the plants, the birds, and the reptiles on the island as well as the other southeast islands affected by the spill. We’ve cleaned up the oil, we’ve put the plants back, and we’ve put back the reptiles and the birds back, too. We’re now still monitoring the island to see how it bounces back from the spill. We have a lot of hope.
In the vein of hope, a lot of people here are dreamers. Ile aux Aigrettes has a bronze cast of a dodo, which went extinct from Mauritius and is really the symbol of extinction everywhere. But now, there is a company, Colossal Biosciences, that is working on de-extinction. And we’re now dreaming that maybe the dodo will come back to life—and if it does, then one of the places it could come back is on Ile aux Aigrettes.
And Jeremy, can you tell me about your work in the Seychelles?
Jeremy Raguain: My work is focused on conservation, but also on small islands and developing states when it comes to climate change and negotiations around oceans. We know our best defense to a crisis—whether its biological or ecological or the climate crisis—is a healthy and resilient environment. So, let me introduce Aldabra Atoll. It is one of the world’s largest raised coral reef atolls. It’s been fully protected since the 1970s and was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982. Sir David Attenborough described it as one of the world’s greatest surviving natural treasures.
While the rest of the world races for economic growth, the Seychelles’ decision to protect this iconic place shows a commitment to our greatest asset: near pristine nature. The ring of islands making up Aldabra’s atoll are separated by four channels that pump water in and out of a lagoon with enough water to swallow up Miami and Manhattan. The lagoon empties out twice a day, creating some of the world’s fastest ocean currents. Coral reefs and seagrass beds wrap around the atoll and extend throughout the lagoon and mangrove forests that span more than 3,000 football fields add to its wonder.
I realized I could make something of my life and do something meaningful.
Tell me more about Aldabra.
Raguain: No one lives on Aldabra, except for Seychelles Islands Foundation staff. No one visits except scientists and the occasional expedition. Aldabra is by no means lifeless. It teems with life. Around 200,000 giant tortoises roam this “land before time.” Endangered green sea turtles have experienced a population rebound of about 500 percent since protection began and are now nesting in the thousands. The mangroves host large frigatebird colonies and boobies. Vast numbers of waders and migrating birds use Aldabra’s tidal pools, including a rare oceanic population of flamingoes.
The atoll is also home to several endemic land species, including the West Indian Ocean’s only flightless bird, the white-throated rail.
Aldabra is world-famous for its marine ecosystems and has the Seychelles’ largest area of coral reef, supporting the highest apex marine predator abundance in the region and a high fish biomass. We have humpbacks, orcas, and many other large marine mammals that migrate through the reserve and it’s also a sanctuary for the Seychelles’ last dugongs.
It sounds like paradise.
Raguain: But Aldabra is not pristine. Rats have greatly impacted its ecosystem in a myriad of ways. One of the most notable is the lack of ground-nesting seabirds except on the lagoon’s islands. Nor is Aldabra immune to climate change’s impact, especially mass coral bleaching events. Something that we could do right now to help Aldabra is to eradicate the cats and rats from the atoll.
But why should you care about Aldabra? It may seem isolated, but it is in the middle of the fast-moving south equatorial current. My colleagues at Oxford University have been investigating coral larvae dispersal using high resolution ocean current models to predict where coral larvae formed at Aldabra travel to and a vast amount of it ends up on East African coasts. This coast is home to more than 50 million people who depend on these corals and the fish for food and for jobs. So an eradication that leads to the restoration of Aldabra Island can bring real benefits to this region.
The first time I went to Aldabra, I was 19 and part of the Seychelles’ Island Foundation’s first eradication. Since then, we’ve put in place strong biosecurity measures to prevent new invasions and we’re looking at how to best eradicate the cats and rats. Because of my experience, I know science and action can move mountains. The Seychelles and other island states need to stand a chance when it comes to the ecological and climate crises we face.
Vikash, you mentioned the idea of bringing back extinct species. What do you say to people who argue we should focus on what we have currently available, rather than the past?
Tatayah: I think it’s not really a choice. We have to do what we can to protect the current biodiversity. We have nearly 170 species of plants that are going extinct on Mauritius. These are single-island and endemic plants. So we need to work on those urgently. But the way I think about it is that we have a toolbox to help protect biodiversity, and we need to use every single tool we’ve got, including bringing back species. The dodo is a famous example, but we’ve lost tortoises, we’ve lost rails—in fact we’re thinking we could bring back the white-throated rails from Aldabra to Mauritius, just like we did the tortoises, to fill that niche. Ultimately, we’re looking at restoring the ecosystems and their food webs. It’s a big picture that we need to build back as best as possible. Now, some things are gone forever. But if there is a chance to work to restore a species, then we need to do it to help build our islands’ resilience, especially to climate change. We don’t have a choice.
You have very personal connections to the places you work in. How does that connection to place inspire your work?
Tatayah: I actually fell into this a little by accident. I didn’t start out in conservation, I started in agriculture. But once I got involved in conservation I realized I could make something of my life and do something meaningful. I live in this world after all.
Raguain: Being outside was a big part of my childhood, but for me, the real eureka moment happened when I first went to Aldabra. It took my breath away. I realized I wanted to do this all the time. But now, I think a lot about climate change and the ecological crisis we find ourselves in. It’s a matter of survival on some level, but it’s also about having the right to thrive. 
Lead image: yroslava Bozhko / Shutterstock
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