This is, I am sorry to say, the final issue of Birdwatch. We have been dealt a body blow from which we are unlikely to recover. In December the Islands Development Company gave us four weeks to vacate the premises we occupy on Silhouette. This includes in the short term (now extended to the end of March) the building housing our office and in the longer term (not specified) our information centre and laboratory. What this means in fact is that we no longer have premises from which to operate and that there is no future for NPTS. We have been told that there is no intention to stop NPTS working on Silhouette but without accommodation, office space, information centre and laboratory how are we expected to continue to support conservation on Silhouette?

Our appeals to government, and in particular the Ministry of Environment, have proved futile. We have had a great deal of international support from the scientific bodies we work with and from the IUCN Species Survival Commission who have written to the Minister of Environment who, in mid-January, arranged a meeting with IDC and the Ministry to help us resolve this crisis. Unfortunately at the meeting we were given absolutely no support by Environment and the only concession IDC made was to extend our notice by two months. It was a humiliating experience to learn how little understanding and appreciation there is for the voluntary conservation work we have been doing in support of Seychelles conservation and its image abroad.

The biggest blow delivered at that meeting was to be told that they were in agreement that there should be no free-roaming tortoises on Silhouette. Can you imagine that we now have a National Park on Silhouette but the major herbivore - the tortoises - must be excluded. Why are they not wanted? Firstly because of future hotel development at Grande Barbe. Secondly because they might be stolen, like the tortoises on Curieuse. Tortoises are free-ranging on North, Cousine, Cousin, Bird and Fregate where there is no great commotion about their being stolen. How can we possibly have conservation policy driven by fear of a few tortoises being poached?

This year would have seen the 20th anniversary of Birdwatch and I regret that it is not to be. The first issues of Birdwatch were produced on a Roneo machine at Seybrew and then progressed to being computer generated also by Seybrew when Edwin Palmer was the Managing Director. We had one year when Printec printed 1,000 copies of each issue so we could distribute them to the schools - this was funded by the Royal Netherlands Embassy. Eventually we left the dinosaur age and joined the computer age which enabled us to produce Birdwatch in our office on Silhouette. This wonderful technology almost drove us nuts at times, trying to move pictures and sort out pages - you'll notice we never succeeded in finding out how to number pages beyond 12.

We hope that you have enjoyed reading Birdwatch. It has been the only journal available to the general public with news from the islands. It has been a way for those of us living on the islands to keep in touch and to share our bird and turtle news and for visitors from other shores to keep up with news of the islands.

Further details on the eviction of NPTS from Silhouette can be found here.

Ron Gerlach