Mohéli Marine Park is the natural jewel of the Comoros and one of the great conservation stories of the Indian Ocean. Created in 2001 as the country's first national park, it protects the southern coast of the archipelago's wildest island: a mosaic of sandy beaches, islets, coral reefs and mangroves where thousands of green turtles nest, humpback whales pass through and species as rare as the dugong survive.
What makes this park unique is not just its biodiversity, but the way it is protected: it is the coastal village communities themselves who, together with the State, manage the reserve, patrol the nesting beaches and organise ecotourism. This community conservation model brought the reefs back to life, multiplied the beaches where turtles nest and even doubled fish catches, earning Mohéli international recognition.
This guide explains what you can see (green turtles nesting at night, humpback whales between July and October, dolphins, living reefs for snorkelling), how to organise your visit from Fomboni or from a lodge on the south coast, when to go and how to do it responsibly, so that your visit helps protect this fragile paradise.
Mohéli Marine Park was created in April 2001 as the first national park in the Comoros, covering some 404 km² of the island's southern coast. It grew out of a pioneering process in which local communities, with support from UNDP, UNEP and IUCN, decided to protect their reefs, turtles and whales from overfishing and destruction. Within a few years corals and wildlife had recovered, and in 2020 it became part of a UNESCO biosphere reserve. Its full story is told on the history page.
Read the full history ↓The smallest, wildest and least populated island: birthplace of the accord that refounded the country and home to its first marine park, with green turtles, whales and living reefs.
Read the history of Mohéli (Mwali) →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The south coast of Mohéli is one of those places where nature shows itself at its most abundant. Right in the Mozambique Channel, one of the richest marine corridors on the planet, the warm, shallow waters around this island are home to coral reefs with hundreds of species, seagrass meadows, mangroves and a string of islets. It is a nesting site for green turtles, a route for humpback whales, home to dolphins, a refuge for a small population of dugongs and for seabirds, and for rarities such as the coelacanth, the 'living fossil' fish that survives in the depths off the Comoros.
For centuries, Mohéli's fishing communities lived off that sea sustainably, using traditional techniques. But in the last decades of the 20th century, pressure on resources began to grow dangerously: a rising population, increasingly intensive fishing, destructive methods, the capture of turtles and their eggs, and the degradation of the reefs. The island's marine 'pantry' was running out, and with it the livelihood of the communities themselves. Fishers noticed there were fewer and fewer fish, and that the turtles' nesting beaches were shrinking.
Faced with that threat, in the late 1990s a revolutionary idea for the country emerged: give this marine heritage legal protection before it was too late. But unlike many parks around the world, created 'from above' by governments and sometimes against the wishes of local people, Mohéli chose a different path: making the communities themselves the leading players in conservation. That decision would shape the park's entire history.
In April 2001, after a long process of consultation and work with the coastal villages, Mohéli Marine Park was officially declared, protecting some 404 km² of the island's south coast: beaches, rocky areas, islets, coral reefs and mangroves. It was the first national park in the history of the Comoros, a milestone for a young country facing enormous difficulties. The project had technical and financial support from international bodies such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
What was truly innovative was the management model. The park was co-managed by the State and the communities of the coastal villages, through a management committee in which the villages held the majority of seats. It was the residents themselves who agreed on the rules — no-take zones, a ban on collecting turtle eggs, controls on destructive fishing gear — and who took charge of enforcing them. Conservation stopped being something imposed from outside and became a community matter, with people seeing the protected sea as their own future.
The results came quickly, and they were spectacular. Within a few years, the badly damaged coral reefs began to recover; catches per fisher rose noticeably as the waters were restocked; and the number of beaches where green turtles nested multiplied. The combination of effective protection and local participation was working. In 2002, just a year after it was created, Mohéli Marine Park was a finalist for the United Nations Equator Prize, which recognises community initiatives in conservation and sustainable development. Little Mohéli was becoming a model for the world.
The park's great symbol is the green turtle (Chelonia mydas). The beaches of southern Mohéli are among the most important nesting sites for this species in the entire Indian Ocean: thousands of females come ashore every year, at night, to lay their eggs in the sand. The village of Itsamia, in the east, became the emblem of this protection: its community association watches over the beaches alongside biologists, protects the nests from predators and poachers, and organises night-time visits so travellers can watch the egg-laying without disturbing it. Once hunted for their meat, the turtles became a treasure that the community looks after and earns income from through ecotourism.
Between July and October, the park hosts another of its great spectacles: the arrival of the humpback whales. Around two hundred of these giants migrate to Mohéli's warm waters to breed and raise their calves. Watching them breach from a boat, or seeing a mother swimming with her calf, is one of the most impressive experiences the Indian Ocean has to offer. They are joined by dolphins, manta rays and other open-ocean species that frequent these waters.
But the park's biodiversity goes far beyond that. Its reefs are home to hundreds of species of coral and fish; in its seagrass meadows survives one of the most threatened dugong populations on the planet; in the nearby forests lives Livingstone's flying fox, a giant, critically endangered endemic bat; and its islets host seabird colonies. This exceptional combination led, in 2020, to the area being included in a UNESCO biosphere reserve, an international recognition of Mohéli's natural value and of its model of coexistence between people and nature.
Mohéli Marine Park is a success story, but not one without difficulties. Funding is always precarious, the country is poor and the pressure on resources never goes away: the temptation of illegal fishing, turtle hunting or taking sand from the beaches comes back in times of scarcity. Keeping up patrols, equipment and community motivation year after year is an ongoing challenge, and it depends on ecotourism and institutional support continuing to deliver tangible benefits to local people.
Climate change adds new threats: coral bleaching as the sea warms, rising water levels eroding the nesting beaches, and increasingly intense cyclones. Protecting Mohéli no longer depends only on what is done on the island, but also on global forces far beyond it. Even so, the park remains a living laboratory of solutions, and its experience has inspired plans to create new protected areas across the rest of the Comoros archipelago.
For travellers, knowing this story transforms the visit. Swimming over a recovered reef, watching a turtle lay her eggs under the watchful eye of the people of Itsamia or spotting a whale with her calf isn't just tourism: it's witnessing one of the most remarkable examples of community-based conservation in Africa. Every fee paid, every guide hired, every rule respected helps keep this model going. Mohéli Marine Park shows that when communities own their natural heritage, protecting the sea and making a living from it can go hand in hand.
