In many parts of the world, conservation can feel distant, shaped in conference rooms, bound to policy cycles, and unfolding on timelines that sometimes do not touch everyday life. But on Réunion Island and in French Polynesia, it is anything but abstract. Here, conservation is lived: immediate, tangible, and woven into cultural identity.
Though separated by a vast ocean, these two French overseas entities share a common thread: an ecological fragility matched only by the strength of community-led initiatives supported through BESTLIFE2030. Across these seascapes and landscapes, people are acting now, with creativity, conviction, and urgency, responding to ecosystems that call for both reverence and rapid action.
As 2025 ends, this LIFE-funded programme looks back on two field missions hosted by the French Biodiversity Agency and the French Committee of IUCN, the partners steering BESTLIFE2030’s efforts across both territories.
From the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, these visits revealed landscapes marked by resilience and communities of farmers, fishers, local organisations and public institutions bound by a deep commitment to nature.
The lines below gather moments and encounters, fragments of fieldwork that offer a glimpse into the work being done to advance biodiversity conservation.
Réunion: An island of steep slopes and steeper commitments
From the air, Réunion greeted us with striking verticality. Rising abruptly from the Indian Ocean, the island resembles a natural citadel, with ridges, cliffs, cirques, and volcanic scars carved into a geography that both shelters and tests life.
On the western coast, the Marine Reserve works to safeguard the delicate interface between land and sea. During the mission, the teams demonstrated the resolve required to protect ecosystems that are spectacular, economically vital, and under constant pressure. Their approach combines scientific monitoring with meaningful community engagement, citizen science, adaptive management, weather-dependent fieldwork, and continuous dialogue.
In the south, the Conservatoire Botanique National de Mascarin offers a quieter but equally crucial window into biodiversity. Its arboretum, home to endemic species on the brink of extinction, stands as a testament to patient restoration. The projects practitioners shared the meticulous work behind this mission: seed collection, propagation, and the steady effort to rebuild ecological balance.
The strength of Réunion’s environmental fabric surfaced during a high-altitude gathering at Maïdo, where botanists, volunteers, marine managers, and youth educators met to exchange knowledge and reflect collectively. The meeting underscored that conservation on Réunion is a practice rooted in a sense of place and community.
Further along the coast, Jasmin Mangua’s agro-ecological work illustrates the natural alignment between ecology and agriculture. Their approach shows that soil health, native vegetation, and resilient livelihoods are not competing objectives but mutually reinforcing ones. In the highland village of Le Brûlé, the Société Réunionnaise pour l’Étude et la Protection de l’Environnement exemplifies the power of community-led restoration, with schools, municipalities, residents, and NGOs rallying around a shared environmental purpose.
What unites these efforts is not uniformity but coherence, a collective understanding that Réunion’s landscapes demand collaboration and that biodiversity endures thanks to people who view conservation not simply as a task but as a way of living.
French Polynesia: Conservation on an ocean scale
If Réunion’s defining feature is verticality, French Polynesia’s is vastness. Spanning an ocean area the size of Western Europe, it is less an archipelago than a constellation of islands, ocean corridors, cultural lineages, and ecological gradients. Here, conservation is not simply a practice; it is existential.
Our journey began in Tahiti’s administrative heart, where discussions with Odewa illuminated the delicate balance between pearl farming, the territory’s second-largest economic sector, and the health of the lagoons that sustain it. These exchanges unveiled a project steadily gaining territorial anchorage, driven by strong awareness-raising efforts that reach both schools and pearl farmers themselves.
At the Pacific Centre of the Institut Français de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer, Tahiti Marine Products demonstrated how their holothurian restoration and aquaculture initiatives seamlessly blend scientific research, cultural heritage, and economic opportunity. Located alongside tanks and open-water parks in the district of Vairao, southwestern Tahiti, their vision for white sea cucumber recovery and sustainable livelihoods vividly underscores that Polynesia’s lagoon future relies on innovation deeply anchored in tradition.
This harmonious blend of old and new echoed throughout our visit. At Te Mana o te Moana, efforts to strengthen knowledge about hawksbill turtles are forging vital connections, making these turtles living ambassadors of marine conservation between French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna.
On the Tuamotu atolls, Vai Natura’s revival of ancient agricultural pits, known as maites, stands as a powerful example of how enhancing local food security, protecting biodiversity, and preserving cultural heritage are deeply intertwined.
A particularly poignant moment came during discussions with Oceania association, focused on reducing cetacean collisions along the routes between Tahiti and Moorea. Their work has already shaped emerging regulations on navigation speeds, showcasing the tangible political impact of these conservation efforts.
In French Polynesia, the strength of conservation work lies in the way people, place, and tradition intersect. This was evident during an experience sharing exchange with a group of BESTLIFE2030 and Kiwa practitioners, private donors and the Ministry of Environment of French Polynesia. What emerged was a shared understanding that protecting nature is not just technical work, it is a cultural practice grounded in relationships, local wisdom, and a deep sense of responsibility to the islands.
Institutional dialogues at the Office of International and European Affairs of the Presidency of French Polynesia underscored how BESTLIFE2030 is not just a conservation programme but a key driver of the territory’s Innovation Strategy 2030. By funding concrete biodiversity and ocean-based projects, BESTLIFE2030 supports the transformation of French Polynesia into an “ocean of innovation”, as envisioned by the 2030 strategy, helping build a knowledge-based, sustainable and inclusive blue economy.
Two territories, one narrative of resilience
Together, Réunion and French Polynesia offer a striking portrait of conservation leadership in the French Overseas Countries and Territories. Their contexts differ, one compact, one vast, but their strengths align: deep connection to nature, commitment to intergenerational stewardship, willingness to act amid constraints, and a shared belief that biodiversity and identity are inseparable.
The BESTLIFE2030 missions showcased more than just project milestones; they revealed a vibrant regional tapestry of expertise, solidarity, and creativity. These territories aren’t waiting for global answers; they are boldly shaping their own future.
