Aldabra Group of Islands
The Aldabra Group consists of four major coralline islands and atolls located roughly between 46 and 48 degrees East, and 9 and 10 degrees South. The island group, may have been visited by Arab traders on their way to East Africa, the Comoros or Madagascar. Aldabra, the largest of the group, is shown on a 1501 Portuguese map that also shows the main granitic group, including Mahe. Without any sheltered anchorage from the monsoons and fresh water dependent mainly on rainfall, the islands had nothing to offer to passing ships. Eventually, as the major granitic group (Mahe ) was claimed, first by France and then by the British, control of the Aldabra Group came with that territory. The islands became part of The British Crown Colony of the Seychelles on 10 November, 1903. It was in 1966, that a proposal by the British for the construction of an air base on Aldabra, rallied British as well as American environmentalists, ornithologists, and scientists to the defense of the island. In 1982, the island was included by UNESCO as a world heritage site, and with additional protection by the Seychelles government for all of the Islands in the Seychelles archipelago, Aldabra will remain as the least spoiled atoll in the world and a laboratory for the study of nature in all its purity. In December of 1991, the atoll was opened to very small groups of tourists. Three to four day excursions are possible via air from Mahe to Assomption that includes a three hour boat ride to Aldabra.
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