Tromelin Island (/ˌtroʊmlɪn
(280 mi) east of Madagascar. Tromelin is administered as part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, a French overseas territory; however, Mauritius claims sovereignty over the island, on grounds of its absence in the listing of the 8th article of the French version of the 1814 Paris Treaty.[citation needed] France and Mauritius have been negotiating for years in regard to the possible establishment of a condominium over the island.
Tromelin has facilities for scientific expeditions and a weather station.It is a nesting site for birds and green sea turtles
.The island is named for the chevalier Bernard Boudin de Tromelin, the captain of the French warship La Dauphine. He arrived at the island on 29 November 1776, and rescued 8 stranded enslaved Africans who had been on the island for 15 years.
As Tromelin is only 7 metres (23 ft) high, studies could not determine if it is the summit of a volcano or an atoll.[citation needed]
Tromelin is about 1,700 metres (1.1 mi) long and 700 metres (0.43 mi) wide, with an area of 80 ha (200 acres), covered in scrub dominated by octopus bush[3] and surrounded by coral reefs. There are no harbours or anchorages, so that access by sea is quite difficult. A 1,200-metre (3,900 ft) airstrip provides a link with the outside world
The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because of its significance as a seabird breeding site. Both masked (with up to 250 pairs) and red-footed boobies (up to 180 pairs) nesting there. Sulidae populations have seriously declined in the western Indian Ocean with those on Tromelin among the healthiest remaining.
The island's masked boobies are of the western Indian Ocean subspecies (Sula dactylatra melanops), of which Tromelin is a stronghold. The red-footed boobies constitute the only polymorphic population in the region, indicating its biogeographical isolation. Both great and lesser frigatebirds used to nest on the island. The breeding populations of both birds have since been extirpated, although they continue to use the island for roosting.
There are no resident landbirds
The island was discovered by France in 1720s.It was recorded by the French navigator Jean Marie Briand de la Feuillée and named "Île des Sables" ('Island of Sands').
In 1761 the French ship L'Utile (The Useful), carrying slaves from Madagascar to Mauritius, ran onto the reefs of the island.
On September 27, 1761, the 123 person French contingent, crew and officers, left Tromelin aboard the raft, Providence, which they had built with the available wood from the wreckage of the L'Utile. They left the slaves – sixty Malagasy men and women – on the desert island; promising to return and rescue them. When the crew of the ship reached Madagascar they requested that the colonial authorities send a ship to rescue the people on the island. However, they met with a categorical refusal, based on the fact that France was fighting the Seven Years' War and thus no ship could be spared.
The Malagasy people, who had been left on the bleak little island, built a shed with coral stones, for most of the wood had been used in the construction of the raft for the crew, and there were no trees on the island. They also built a lookout on the highest point of the island in order not to miss the ship that would, they hoped, come to their rescue. They were all from the Central Highlands of Madagascar, and had no knowledge of how to produce food in the marine environment. Most died within the first few months.
Fifteen years later, in 1776, the French warship La Dauphine, arrived at the island. They rescued the survivors – seven women and an eight-month-old child
The French claim to sovereignty dates from 29 November 1776, the date that the ship La Dauphine arrived.
The Mauritian claim to sovereignty is based on the fact that the island was not ceded to France by the treaty of Paris in 1814.
The United Nations never recognized the Mauritian sovereignty over Tromelin. In 1954, France constructed a meteorological station and a landing strip on the island.
It is a matter of dispute whether the building agreement transferred sovereignty of Tromelin from one to the other, and Mauritius claims the island as part of its territory, on the grounds that sovereignty was not transferred to France in 1814, and the island was thus part of the colony of Mauritius at the time of independence. Indeed, as early as 1959, even before independence, Mauritius informed the World Meteorological Organization that it considered Tromelin to be part of its territory. France and Mauritius reached a co-management treaty in 2010.
Tromelin has an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 280,000 square kilometres (108,109 square miles), contiguous with that of Réunion. The island's weather station, which warns of cyclones, is still operated by France and is staffed by meteorologists from Réunion.
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