Reporting spurs effort to return key tree to nature in Mauritius

13 Nov 2025

In November 2024, Mongabay published a report detailing how the last wild Round Island hurricane palm (Dictyosperma album var. conjugatum), a rare species native to Mauritius, had snapped during a windstorm in mid-September 2024, marking its extinction. Once thriving on the Indian Ocean’s 1.7-square-kilometer (0.7-square-mile) Round Island – a hotspot for rare species – the tree had stood alone for decades as the only survivor of its kind.

“The tree was like the Eiffel Tower of Round Island. Anybody working on plants, reptiles, seabirds, or invertebrates would say, ‘We’ve got to go see it,’” Vikash Tatayah, conservation director of the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, told Mongabay by phone.

The trees’ decline began in the 19th century when British colonizers brought in animals like rabbits and goats. The invasive species overran the island’s ecosystem, eroding the topsoil that helps hold palm trees in place. By 1994, only two trees were left; one fell during a cyclone later that year.

“It’s almost like losing something forever. It’s really profound,” Malin Rivers, head of conservation prioritization at U.K.-based Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), told Mongabay by phone. According to the IUCN Red List’s first Global Tree Assessment, carried out by BGCI and published recently, 46,337 of all tree species, 38% of the global total, are at risk of extinction.

This Round Island hurricane palm (Dictyosperma album var. conjugatum), photographed in 2021 while it was still healthy, was the last of its species left in the wild. Image courtesy of Vikash Tatayah/Mauritian Wildlife Foundation.
This Round Island hurricane palm (Dictyosperma album var. conjugatum), photographed in 2021 while it was still healthy, was the last of its species left in the wild. Image courtesy of Vikash Tatayah/Mauritian Wildlife Foundation.

The Mauritian Wildlife Foundation has been working to save the tree and other species for decades in partnership with the Mauritian government and the U.K.-based Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (DWCT). Years of decline ultimately took their toll, but it may not be the end.

Seeds from the Round Island hurricane palm were collected in the early 1990s and planted on nearby islands, including Ile aux Aigrettes, Black River and Mondrain. However, these individuals have only recently begun to produce fruits, and there remains a risk of hybridization with other Dictyosperma variants.

To address this, a collaborative genetic screening process involving organizations including the DWCT and the University of Cardiff will be needed to ensure that hybrids are not reintroduced to Round Island. “This is why no hope is lost yet, but more work is needed, and hopefully in a few decades, we will have confirmed [the species’ reintroduction onto] Round Island,” Tatayah said.

Mongabay reporter Shanna Hanbury’s reporting highlighted the broader conservation challenges in Mauritius and the efforts of local scientists to preserve genetic material from the fallen tree, and now, may have brought new players in to join the effort to save the tree.

Impact

After reading Hanbury’s article on the extinction of the Round Island hurricane palm, Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden (RJBG) discovered they held a living specimen of the same variant. After confirming the tree produced flowers and fruits, the botanical garden published an article on the topic.

“We discovered we’ve had the hurricane palm in our collection for over 70 years, which means there’s a reasonable chance that ours come from other parent plants, older than the ones they may have there today,” said RJBG’s press officer, Claudia Rabelo Lopes. “We also found through the BGCI that this variety is being cultivated in other botanical gardens around the world,” she said.

After gathering more information about their specimens and compiling data, staff from the botanical garden shared with Mongabay in late October 2025 via email that they were getting in touch with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation with the intention to help return the Round Island Hurricane Palm variant to the wild. “We really want to be able to contribute to saving the hurricane palm from extinction,” said Rabelo Lopes.

These actions, directly prompted by Mongabay’s independent reporting, opened a new path for international cooperation to restore a tree once thought lost.

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Banner image: The four hurricane palms in Rio de Janeiro’s Botanical Garden produce flowers and fruit. Image courtesy of Marcus Nadruz / Instituto de Pesquisas Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro.