Idea #775 – Exploring Mayotte archipelago
Mayotte (in Mahorais: Maoré) is an archipelago located in the Indian Ocean, in the middle of the Mozambique Channel. Both a French island region and an overseas department of France, Mayotte is made up of two main islands, Grande-Terre and Petite-Terre, and several other small islands including Mtsamboro, Mbouzi and Bandrélé.
On April 25, 1841, Sultan Andriantsoly sold Mayotte to the kingdom of France, while Louis-Philippe reigned. The sultan, seeing the neighboring kingdoms threatening the archipelago, preferred to see the two islands pass under the domination of France. In 1848, the island thus integrated the French Republic, before in 1886, France imposed a protectorate on the rest of the Comoros archipelago.
In the 1960s, activists acted to record the definitive attachment of Mayotte to the French Republic; in 1974, France then organized a great referendum of self-determination on the whole of the Comoros archipelago. On the island of Mayotte, nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants prefer to join France, a position confirmed by a new referendum organized in 1976. Following the local referendum of 2009, Mayotte then became an overseas department and region .
Mayotte is a tropical island endowed with exceptional biodiversity, with at least 1,300 recorded species, more than half of which are endemic. On the beaches, where turtles lay their eggs, baobabs (Adansonia digitata) grow in which colonies of fruit bats can be found. Estuaries are often colonized by mangrove swamps, thus favoring the reproduction of fish and aquatic species. The brown lemur, called “maki de Mayotte” has found refuge in the forests of the island; it comes out regularly to walk in the villages, in groups of seven to twelve individuals. These animals would have been imported from Madagascar by the first centers of settlement to serve as game…
Some Pictures
Where is it ?
Mayotte, France