French Southern and Antarctic Lands nature reserve
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How it came to be
The French Austral Lands and Seas reserve covers the Crozet Archipelago, the Kerguelen Islands, Saint-Paul and Amsterdam islands, some 60 smaller islands and the surrounding ocean between latitudes 37 and 50 degrees south in the Indian Ocean. Three converging ocean fronts make these waters highly productive, feeding one of the world's largest concentrations of seabirds and marine mammals.
The first European record came in 1522, when the Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano sighted Amsterdam Island. In 1633 the Dutch governor Anthonie van Diemen named it after his ship Nieuw Amsterdam, and in 1772 the French navigator Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec discovered the Kerguelen Islands. France reasserted its claim to Kerguelen in 1893.
The area became a national nature reserve in 2006, was enlarged to more than 672,000 km² in 2016, and in 2017 its rules were extended to the whole exclusive economic zone of over 1.66 million km². More than 50 million birds of 47 species live here, and Île aux Cochons in the Crozet group holds the world's largest King Penguin colony. Among eight endemic species is the Amsterdam Albatross, one of the rarest birds on Earth.
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