To Protect the Ocean, Refinance Your Debt

The Republic of Seychelles is a beautiful scatterplot of a country: 115 islands strewn over 700 miles of turquoise waters, rich in biodiversity and home to many endemic species. Despite its size, Seychelles’ land area is tiny: 176 square miles of land dwarfed by 521,000 miles of marine territory that extends roughly 200 nautical miles from shore.

But this aquatic Eden has its share of problems. Seychelles has less than 100,000 full-time residents, and like many other small island states relies heavily on tourism and fishing; these industries support more than two-thirds of the local economy, and both are increasingly compromised by ocean acidification and warming. In 1998, some areas of Seychelles lost up to 90 percent of their coral reefs due to an El Niño-related weather event. 

Also, like many other small island nations, Seychelles doesn’t have the resources to protect the ocean that, the 2008 global financial crisis, and fallout from the pandemic—and faces crippling interest rates on what it already owes to a handful of European countries (mostly the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and Italy).