Vallée de Mai
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How it came to be
The Vallée de Mai is a 19.5-hectare palm forest in the middle of Praslin Island in the Seychelles. It is the only place where all six of the Seychelles' endemic palms grow together, and it holds the largest population of the coco de mer, which bears the largest seed in the plant kingdom. The nut was once believed to grow at the bottom of the sea.
In 1881 the British general Charles Gordon, visiting the island on a military mission, declared the valley to be the Garden of Eden and took the coco de mer for the forbidden fruit. The forest stayed almost untouched until the 1930s. A subspecies of black parrot found only on Praslin depends on it and the surrounding palm forest.
The valley became a nature reserve on 18 April 1966 and has been protected within a national park since 1979. It was inscribed in 1983. For the Seychelles Islands Foundation, which manages it, the greatest threats are fire and the theft of seeds, so nuts are gathered and planted before they can be taken.
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