An Island Only Helicopters Can Reach

In the centre of La Réunion, the tiny French island that bobs in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and Mauritius, there is another sort of island. This one is even more isolated.

Formed when the magna chamber of a major volcano collapsed some three million years ago, the verdant Cirque de Mafate is separated from the rest of the island by sheer cliff walls, impressive mountains and thick tropical forest. The only way in or out of the amphitheatre-shaped valley is by foot – or, in a pinch, by helicopter.

Settlers arrived in the lush volcanic crater in the 18th Century. The first wave consisted of enslaved Africans fleeing their masters. Later came several impoverished French farmers whose plantations had failed after slavery was abolished. For generations, these settlers and their descendants were all but cut off from the outside world.

Today, Mafate’s roughly 800 inhabitants, known as Mafatais, live in tiny villages called îlets (a local Creole word that evokes the French word for tiny islands, îlots). Almost all of the residents are descendants of the original settlers, and each village consists of as few as two or three colourful, tin-roofed houses. There’s no electricity or water grid for the approximately 100sqkm valley. Doctors, police officers or foresters, if ever they are needed, are either brought in by helicopter or hike in.

In 2010, Unesco designated Mafate – as well as La Réunion’s two other, more accessible cirques and all of the island’s pitons and ramparts – as a World Heritage site, a move that’s brought in a recent influx of travellers. For now, those who visit this lost Garden of Eden are treated to breathtaking vistas, deep lush forests, wide African plains, wild rivers and a rich local culture – but that might not always be the case.

Much like the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean, La Réunion is home to a number of endemic birds, insects and plants not found anywhere else in the world. And Mafate is one of the few places left in the world to see an ecosystem that has developed over millions of years in relative isolation.

The valley is home to the Réunion stonechat, the Réunion marsh harrier, the Mascarene paradise flycatcher and the Réunion olive white-eye – all birds found only in the region. Several of the plants on view – most impressively the large highland tamarind tree that populates the Tamarin plains just below the Col des Bœufs mountain pass – grow nowhere else but Mafate.