The Seychelles consists of 41 granitic (pre-Cambrian) and 74 coralline islands rising from the Seychelles Bank, a shallow water area of some 31,000 km2. This bank is believed to have formed as a separation from the Indian plate. Today, as a nation, the Seychelles has a vast Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to land ratio. The total land area of 455 km2 is scattered within a 1, 374 000 km2. The islands are divided into two main groups, the outer and the inner islands. The Inner Seychelles are principally granitic and are home to 97% of the total population of approximately 75,000. Mahe is the largest island and the location of the capital Victoria and the Government.
Protected natural areas constitute a total land area of 19, 760 km2, i.e. 43% of Seychelles land, as well as approximately 27,000 ha of marine areas including coral reefs. Currently the Seychelles has 5 officially declared Marine National Parks, 2 Special Reserves which include marine habitats, 4 shell reserves and several other marine protected areas. Although some of these areas have been designated for nearly 30 years, not all areas are actively managed and for some areas very little is known about the marine habitats. A recent paper by Nirmal Jivan Shah, a Seychellois biologist, gives a good overview of the state of conservation in the Seychelles (Managing Coastal Areas in the Seychelles, Natural Resources 31 (4), UNESCO, 1995).