Cousin Island
Cousin Island: A Natural Paradise West of Praslin
2.5 km (1.5 miles) off the west coast of Praslin lies another island full of marine flora and endemic creatures. Besides Aride, this area is also home to Cousin, the most-protected island with the largest number of endemic plants and animals in the Seychelles.
The 29-hectare island, with a diameter of 300 metres, was purchased using donations in 1968 to save, above all, the Seychelles brush warbler and the toc toc. Nowadays, this habitat, owned by the independent environmental organisation Nature Seychelles protects the area, allowing it to comprehensively restore itself. The organisation collaborates with various travel agencies and hotels, who in turn organise guided multilingual tours. Often, Cousin, Cousine, and Curieuse can be visited on the same tour in one day. A guided tour of Cousin takes around 90 minutes, where a tour guide will take a group of interested travellers across the island, giving them extensive information about the flora and fauna that can be found there.
Cousine Island
Cousine Island: A Dream for Luxury Holidaymakers
Cousine Island is very similar to its sister island both in terms of its name and its outward appearance. Lying 2 km south-west of Cousin, and with a size of 25 hectares, it is also a nature reserve. In addition, the island is itself private property, and is not to be visited except by a handful of luxury holidaymakers who can stay in one of the four fine, unpretentious villas on the island.
Fans of nature seeking solitude and isolation, and those who can also afford it, can find their own kind of special Seychelles holiday here. Each guest gets to plant their own new tree.
This island was also exploited in the past, as with many Seychelles islands. Wood, tobacco and coconut plantations, livestock farming, and poaching all took their toll. In fact, by 1970, this had led to the disappearance of the sooty tern, and the Seychelles brush warbler wasn’t far behind. In 1992, a committed South African decided to buy the island, which was soon thereafter placed under state protection, and extensive restoration initiatives were introduced, although not as advanced as those on Cousin.
Curieuse Island
Curieuse Island: Beautiful Home of Wild Giant Tortoises
Just a few hundred metres separates the three square kilometre island of Curieuse from Praslin, with just a singular islet located between the two land masses.
Curieuse is the fifth-largest of the Inner Seychelles islands, and offers unspoilt wilderness and popular photo opportunities for guests, from the outstanding granite rock beaches and the quaint, freely-roaming giant tortoises to the Coco de Mer palm trees and the unspoilt mangrove forests. Unfortunately, in the 1970s large sections of the original forests were eliminated by fire. Since then, comprehensive efforts have taken place to restore the ecological balance of the island.
