Europa Island

Description

Europa is 6 km in diameter, with a maximum altitude of 6 m, and has 22.2 km of coastline. It is surrounded by coral beaches and a fringing reef and encloses a mangrove lagoon of around 9 km2 and open to the sea on one side.

There are no ports or harbours but anchorage is possible offshore. Its exclusive economic zone, contiguous with that of Bassas da India, is 127300 km2. The airstrip is 1500 m metres long.

Ecology

The island is a nature reserve. Its vegetation consists of dry forest, scrub, Euphorbia, the mangrove swamp, and the remains of a sisal plantation. It is one of the world's largest nesting sites for green sea turtles. It is also home to goats introduced by settlers in the late 18th century.

The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because it supports a large and diverse population of breeding seabirds and other waterbirds. It is the only known breeding site outside Aldabra and Madagascar for Malagasy pond herons. Seabirds include the second largest colony in the western Indian Ocean of great frigatebirds (with up to 1100 pairs), tropical shearwaters (up to 100 pairs, probably of the subspecies Puffinus bailloni bailloni previously considered endemic to the Mascarene Islands), dimorphic egrets and Caspian terns.

Europa is home to an endemic subspecies of white-tailed tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus europae), three kinds of landbird (including an endemic subspecies of the Malagasy white-eye) and its own species of hissing cockroach.

Climate

Europa Island's climate is affected by the Agulhas Current with water temperatures usually above 30 C, southeast trade winds during the (austral) winter and occasional cyclones. The climate can be described as a semi-arid and tropical combination with wet summers and dry winters.

|Jan record high C = 35.5 |Feb record high C = 34.9 |Mar record high C = 35.0 |Apr record high C = 33.9 |May record high C = 31.4 |Jun record high C = 29.3 |Jul record high C = 30.0 |Aug record high C = 30.3 |Sep record high C = 34.0 |Oct record high C = 34.3 |Nov record high C = 34.3 |Dec record high C = 34.7 |year record high C = |Jan record low C = 18.8 |Feb record low C = 19.1 |Mar record low C = 17.3 |Apr record low C = 15.6 |May record low C = 12.2 |Jun record low C = 10.2 |Jul record low C = 10.5 |Aug record low C = 11.1 |Sep record low C = 11.7 |Oct record low C = 12.4 |Nov record low C = 12.2 |Dec record low C = 15.0 |year record low C = 10.2 | access-date = 5 April 2017}} |access-date= 17 February 2025}}

History

While the island has probably been sighted by navigators since at least the 16th century, it takes its name from the British ship Europa, which visited it in December 1774. Ruins and graves on Europa island attest to several attempts at settlement from the 1860s to the 1920s. For example, the French Rosiers family moved to the island in 1860, but subsequently abandoned it. The Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean are partially claimed by the Comoros, Madagascar, and Mauritius. The Malagasy and Mauritian claims, however, are significantly later than their access to independence. However, the agreement reached in October 2024 on the restitution to Mauritius of the Chagos Islands by the United Kingdom, in the heart of the Indian Ocean, notably home to the American base of Diego Garcia, has relaunched the debate in Madagascar.

File:Europa Island.jpg|Satellite photo of Europa Island (north at top) File:Europa Island simplified land cover map-en.svg|Map of Europa Island File:vue aerienne europa.jpg|Aerial view of the island File:EuropaDunesNord.jpg|Beaches, north of the island

References

References

1. (July 27, 2021). "Le président Macron envoie l'Armée française sur les îles éparses".
2. (2013-11-10). "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau - Collection One". DocuWiki.
3. "Île d'Europa".
4. "BirdLife International - conserving the world's birds".
5. C. van Herrewege. 1973. Contribution à l'étude des Blattaria de la faune Malgache. II. Description de huit espèces nouvelles appartenant aux genres ''Gromphadorhina'' Brunner v.W. et ''Elliptorhina'' gen. nov. Bulletin de la Société Linnéenne de Lyon, 42nd année, Numéro spécial du 150th anniversaire, décembre 1973. 75-103
6. (2010). "Europa". Terres australes et antarctiques françaises.
7. (22 October 2019). "Les confettis de l'empire colonial français qui irritent Madagascar".
8. (6 June 2025). "Dérisoires sentinelles sur la route des super-pétroliers".