Annual Mangrove Monitoring on Curieuse Island

SPGA’s Research Team, together with our newest intern Ms. Alyssa and the Curieuse team, is carrying out the week-long annual mangrove monitoring exercise on Curieuse Island.

The team will survey 74 permanent quadrats, each measuring 10 × 10 m, which are monitored every year. In each quadrat, they count adult trees by species and record saplings and seedlings. They also record the fauna that live in the mangroves and other ecological indicators, such as canopy cover.

Curieuse is home to five of the seven mangrove species found in Seychelles. This makes the island an important site for understanding and monitoring these valuable ecosystems.

Because the same quadrats are surveyed year after year, the data shows how the mangroves are changing over time. It lets the team track the health of the mangroves, how well they are regenerating, and shifts in which species are present. These findings help guide the long-term conservation and management of the mangroves on Curieuse and across Seychelles.