INTERVIEW-Protecting Seychelles environment tough challenge

From Reuters

10 Jan 2009 10:45:05 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Richard Lough

VICTORIA, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Getting the right balance between development and protecting the environment presents small island states with a tough challenge which cannot be ignored, the Seychelles' president said.

A rising population and the growing demands of the tourism industry are putting a strain on the Indian Ocean islands' environment which is home to scores of birds, reptiles and plants native to the Seychelles.

"It's not an easy balance to maintain. There is always a lot of pressure from developers who want to go big, who want to maximise their revenue and make a lot of profit," President James Michel told Reuters late on Friday.

Speaking at State House, a grand colonial mansion set against the tropical forest-clad mountains of Mahe island, Michel said stringent policies to safeguard the environment had hitherto stopped the islands' being bulldozered into oblivion.

"We have ensured that the industry has not entered the mass tourism sector which would affect the country negatively," he said, adding that some islands in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean had been "practically destroyed" by cheap holiday packages.

The Seychelles archipelago covers more than 1.3 million square km (500,000 square miles) of the Western Indian Ocean although total land area is 455 square km.

The country has a strong track-record for protecting its environment. In 1990, it became the first African country to draw up a 10-year environmental management plan and the archipelago has the highest proportion of protected land in the world -- more than 50 percent of its total area.

LUXURY VILLA BOOM

Critics say there are blemishes to the record, citing the land reclamation project on Mahe -- the largest and most developed island which is home to 90 percent of the islands' 85,000 inhabitants -- to create space for housing.

The alternative was to destroy mountains and virgin forests, said the president.

The Seychelles is saddled with foreign debt of more than $800 million and in November the International Monetary Fund stepped in with a package to ease the crisis. [ID:nL9433922]

The government hopes offshore oil could become a leading source of income, if seismic surveys prove correct, but has pledged to keep the Seychelles' clean. [ID:nL9213199]

An incipient real estate boom in luxury villas is also prompting fears the government may be succumbing to the temptation of easy, fast money.

The Seychelles' latest strategy is to encourage property developers to set up independent trust funds to finance environmental projects within local communities.

"What we have done is bring tourism developers to the table and said you may have destroyed other environments, you may have made quick money elsewhere, but you won't do it here," said Rolph Payet, a conservationist and adviser to the president.

He said such funds were probably the last thing on developers' priority list, but that it was the unique ecosystems that drew visitors to the Seychelles in the first place.

Visitors have been willing to pay a price for a slice of Eden -- luxury villas on privately run islands can go for more than $9,000 a night.

"The environment commands a price, but developers forget that part of the equation," said Payet.