This January 7, 2025, the Réunion Marine Nature Reserve presented its mobile application, dedicated to sea users. It allows you to find out about regulations and good practices, in order to better protect the coral reef and its ecosystems.
Since 2007, the Reunion Island Marine Nature Reserve has had the role of protecting this area rich in biodiversity, thanks to its coral reef, over 35km2 between Cap La Houssaye in Saint-Paul and Roche aux Oiseaux in Etang-Salé.
A common good that must obviously be preserved and respected, while the number of people practicing nautical activities in the Reserve will approach 250,000 in 2023.
Watch the report from Réunion La 1ère:
New Marine Reserve application
In order to reconcile this human activity and the preservation of reefs, the Réunion Marine Nature Reserve (RNMR) worked on the design of a mobile application, launched at the start of 2025, “year of the sea“, and which can be appropriated by all users of the sea, whether they are boaters, divers, paddlers, kayakers or kite-surfers, fishermen…
These different users can find on the application “RNMR“, the Reserve's identity card, the different zoning, the rules of good practice according to water activities, the mooring devices available for boats and divers…
For Anne-Laure Clément, head of the Uses and activities division at the RNMR, this application should make it possible to “find your way around and understand the rules a little better to be able to respect the Reserve“, “help everyone to see at sea or on the beach what they have the right to do or not“.
Boaters, for example, can, thanks to this new application, identify the mooring devices at their disposal – around forty – on the territory of the Reserve, in order to be able to use these buoys and thus avoid dropping anchor, which damages the seabed. By flashing a QR Code displayed on the buoy, boaters will also be able to consult reminders of the regulations, and a certain amount of information on what is possible or not possible to do depending on the different zones where they are.
There is a lot of ignorance among users, note RNMR stakeholders. They give rise to a certain number of offenses observed within the perimeter of the Reserve: 91 last year. Jérôme Suros, head of the surveillance unit (North sector), says he regularly finds underwater fishermen in the lagoon, during night missions, “in 1.5m of water with lamp and fishing gun, collecting juvenile fish“.
Some poachers, he argues, are sometimes caught with “15 to 20 kilos“fish taken from the lagoon of the Reserve which is essential for the reproduction of species, acting as”nursery“.
Maya Cesari, regional advisor responsible for innovation and blue growth, has the ambition that with this new tool users of the Reserve will become actors in the protection of biodiversity. “These people often have the desire but are not equipped with the tools. (…) From now on they will be able to geolocate themselves. We provide them with knowledge and put them in the position of actors in environmental protection“, she says.
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©Delphine Poudroux
Philippe Malizard, sub-prefect of Saint-Paul and president of the GIP of the Réunion Marine Nature Reserve, is satisfied with the arrival of this tool which responds to the “concern to make those who go to the Reserve understand that they must respect it“. They are also invited to take ownership of the application, which is only in its first version, to be able to develop and improve it.
It is available for free on the Google Play and AppStore platforms.
As a reminder, the Réunion Marine Nature Reserve, created in 2007, covers 35km2, i.e. a coastal stretch of 44km, including 20km of coral reef. 80% of the coral reefs around the island are included. More than 3,600 species are recorded in the Reserve.
