Third issue of Seychelles Research Journal now available online |24 February 2020

The cover of the Seychelles Research Journal

The third issue of the Seychelles Research Journal is now online and can be read at www.seychellesresearchjournal.com

Published by UniSey, the aim of the journal is to demonstrate the vitality of research across this small island nation. As well as our own writers, we attract researchers from other local organisations and also from beyond these shores to write about different aspects of Seychelles. There are some excellent examples of each in this new issue.

Dr Gerard Rocamora and Professor Karl Fleischmann have each for long made studies of the unique environment of Seychelles, the former with an international reputation for his work on invasive species and the latter for his revealing exploration of the forest habitat. Generations of students and practitioners alike

have cause to be indebted to them both for their meticulous research and it is an honour to be able to include these two contributions – the one being the outcome of an interview and the other a detailed article.

Thanks are due to another environmentalist, Dr Jérôme Harlay, for undertaking the interview.

The Blue Economy will always be a topic of particular interest in Seychelles, and this time we are including the work of three German researchers on aspects of renewable energy, including the means to finance it. Too often, our enthusiasm runs away with us and ideas are not always supported with a means to make them happen. Our thanks are due to Michel Köhler, Stefan Wehner and Björn Dransfeld for redressing this imbalance.

Also on the theme of how to fund the Blue Economy, Dr Stuart Laing, a South African environmentalist working at UniSey, has added an interesting research note. In this, he presents an exemplary account of blue bonds and how these are being used in Seychelles.

A different approach to the Blue Economy comes in the form of an article by Dr Indra Persaud, in which she shows that there are potential costs as well as benefits that can result from the sustainable development of the ocean. Indra shows that good governance will be essential if a fair balance is to be struck between competing interests.

Apart from the Blue Economy, linguistics always attract plenty of interest in Seychelles, not surprising perhaps with no fewer than three official languages (English, French and Creole). In this instance, Dr Olga Klymenko crosses linguistic boundaries to produce this article on the descriptivity of graphic verbs in

Seychellois Creole.

From a very different field, Dr Hans Manee has produced a fascinating study of the incidence of the unexpectedly prevalent condition of rhinosinusitis. One might have thought, in the relatively clean air of these oceanic islands, that the population would be little troubled by this kind of condition but Dr Manee has

discovered the very opposite. More worrying is its apparent association with respiratory tract infections and pneumonia, which are also on the rise.

In a further article, Dennis Hardy takes another look at geopolitics in the region, this time pointing to some of the many potential challenges facing Seychelles. A paradise in one sense, the archipelago is also at the meeting of cross-currents of a troubled sea. The same author also reviews a new book on heritage and cultural

connections across the ocean, a subject that is relevant to work in the Creole Language and Culture Research Institute at the UniSey.

Research notes are an important feature of the journal, helping to let people know what is going on and perhaps heralding future articles on the various subjects. This is why Alexander Murugaiyan’s contribution is very welcome, inviting readers to delve into the fast-changing world of computing science.

It is clear from the above that research is alive and well in Seychelles, an essential ingredient in the transition towards a knowledge economy.

Contributed