In 1973, Cadbury saved a stripped Seychelles island; today, more than 1M seabirds breed there yearly

For decades, the small island of Aride in the Seychelles was treated less as a wildlife sanctuary and more as a source of income. Its forests were cleared for cultivation, coconut plantations covered parts of the island and its seabirds became a resource that could be harvested. Sooty tern eggs, in particular, were collected in huge numbers and shipped to other islands. Then, in 1973, British conservationist Christopher Cadbury stepped in.Cadbury, a member of the family behind the Cadbury chocolate company, provided £40,000 to enable the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves, now the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, to acquire Aride and protect it as a nature reserve. That sum would be equivalent to almost £1 million today, according to Silhouette, the Air Seychelles magazine. More than five decades later, the 74-hectare island has become one of the most important seabird colonies in the Indian Ocean. Around one million breeding seabirds belonging to 10 species are now associated with Aride, while its restored forests provide habitat for endemic birds, reptiles and plants. The transformation is striking because Aride was far from untouched when Cadbury helped secure its fut...