● <B> Mauritius is listed as an IUCN biodiversity hotspot. Why are our flora and fauna so imperiled? </B>

Oceanic islands have faunas and floras that are ?unbalanced? by continental standards, notably in lacking the mammals that act as predators elsewhere. So the animals are not adapted to rats, cats, pigs, monkeys, etc. and when they are introduced, they can devastate the fauna ? and they have been in Mauritius for 400 years. Similarly, plants adapted to tortoise grazing cannot cope with pigs, goats and deer, or with rats and monkeys destroying their seeds. Invasive plants such as Chinese guava and Ceylon privet suppress native saplings in the forest and shade them out. Human activities have impacted directly by cutting down forest and altering the landscape, leaving less and less space for the specialized native species ? a few adaptable ones, such as picpics andday-geckos, can survive in gardens and plantations, but most need the native forest.

● <B> ?Lost land of the dodo? is a voluminous work. Could you tell us how you went about writing it? What did you learn? </B>

I began working in the Mascarenes in 1973 doing research on endangered birds and bats, but when writing this up I realized that it was important to understand the context in which the rarity has arisen. I wrote a preliminary ecological history in 1987, but after a visit in 1996 decided it needed updating and expanding, with much more on the bio-geographical and human historical background. After meeting Julian Hume, the book?s artist and now active Mascarene paleontologist, we decided to do a book together that brought out the history in detail. We got our publishing contract in 1999, and it took nine years work before the book was published. The research was mostly done in Oxford libraries ? former Mauritian meteorologist and polymath Albert Walter had deposited a wonderful Mauritian collection in the university?s libraries ? which was the basis for much of the data, but I also sourced material by correspondence from all over the world and on visits to Mauritius and Réunion.

● <B> What did you hope to achieve by writing it? </B>

As far as I know, Lost Land of the dodo is the first time an island?s ecological history has been written up in so thoroughly, which is in fact only possible in a few places, because usually the early human history was not recorded (e.g. Madagascar, Pacific islands etc.). However, since the first visitors were Europeans who recorded what they saw and did, it is possible to examine the events in the Mascarenes in almost forensic detail. I wanted to show how collecting and analyzing this information can be used to help solve problems not only in the Mascarenes but also elsewhere with similar problems. So many species could have been saved if a little more imagination and action had been taken. Even the food species were killed out ? saving the tortoises should have been both obvious and easy, but all attempts failed. The only species, extinct in the wild, that the habitants deliberately saved for posterity is the palmiste blanc.

● <B> The extinction of which species do you rue the most? </B>

It has to be the dodo itself, although all the lost animals were precious; the huge raven or broad-billed parrots were spectacular, and the owls had evolved extra long legs to catch lizards, and the giant lizards would have been a lot of fun to still have around ? the ?didosaurus? skink in Mauritius and the Liénard?s giant day-gecko in Rodrigues. My biggest regret in my own time is never having seen the burrowing boa on Round Island before it became extinct in 1975.

<I>?What the average Mauritian thinks of as ?Mauritian? species are in fact quite the opposite from a conservation point of view ? condé, martin, moineau, tourterelle, serin dikap, mongoose, cameleon, etc. all come from outside...?</I>

● <B> What should be our priorities in terms of biodiversity conservation? </B>

The surviving Mauritian forest is so degraded by invasive species and introduced predators that just preserving surviving tracts is not enough ? they will die out slowly through lack of replacement. So the future is in restorative ecology, trying to rebuild the ecosystem by excluding the predatory animals, suppressing invasive plants and introducing ecologically similar species to those now lost to re-connect part of the ecological web that are missing ? particularly in relation to pollination and seed dispersal of forest trees. The Mauritian Wildlife Foundation and the University of Zurich, together with the University of Mauritius and the NPCS have done very promising pioneer work in this direction.

● <B> Do you think that Mauritians are sufficiently aware of conservation issues? </B>

Basically no, but it is entirely understandable, because most of the species they see in gardens and in the countryside are ?foreign? animals and plants from all over the tropics ? i.e. what the average Mauritian thinks of as ?Mauritian? species are in fact quite the opposite from a conservation point of view ? condé, martin, moineau, tourterelle, serin dikap, mongoose, cameleon, etc. all come from outside, so it is difficult to appreciate the country?s original fauna ? even if you do go to the forest the animals are rare and hard to see, so it is difficult to be impressed. Educational facilities like Ile-aux-Aigrettes and the National Park centres are very helpful, but both the public and tourists can be confused by ?eco-tourism? sites that advertise seeing deer and monkeys as the big draw ? they are indeed wildlife, but not the sort that requires urgent conservation !

● <B> How should we implement them? </B>

Stop importing animals that could escape into the wild (too many in recent years). Don?t assume endemic bats are the worst pest in fruit trees without a proper study first ? birds (condé, martin) eat fruit too. Increase the size of the ?conservation management areas? in the forest where restoration takes place. Turn Ile d?Ambre and Flat Island into conservation education facilities ? they are big enough to host species that can?t live on tiny Ile-aux-Aigrettes or can?t be visited on specially protected Round Island. Plant native trees, especially ones of historical importance (natte, ebony etc) in parks, gardens, and along roads so that people become familiar with them again. Include island biogeography (at appropriate levels) in education curricula to explain to all children the significance of Mauritius and the Mascarenes in the global context (hotspots etc.) and, hopefully, evoke pride in preserving what remains.