Aldabra's Deep Water, Seen for the First Time

Aldabra Atoll is one of the world's largest raised coral atolls, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1982 and home to the biggest giant tortoise population on Earth, managed by the Seychelles Islands Foundation, a public trust established in 1979 which also runs the Vallée de Mai. Its research station has operated for over fifty years, but the work stopped at diver depth: the atoll's deeper slopes, where reef life connects to the open ocean, were unexplored. In March and April 2019 SIF worked with the Nekton first-descent expedition aboard the Ocean Zephyr, using submersibles and ROVs alongside divers to survey Aldabra's fish communities down to 250 metres for the first time. The results fed into a zonation strategy dividing Aldabra's marine area into tourism, food security and conservation zones — the first of its kind in Seychelles — and into the country's wider commitment to protect roughly a third of its vast ocean territory.