French Austral Lands and Seas

The French Austral Lands and Seas were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2019 and constitute France's largest natural property, with almost 673,000 km² of largely marine area in the southern Indian Ocean. The property comprises the Crozet and Kerguelen archipelagos and the islands of Saint-Paul and Amsterdam, together with their surrounding waters.

This is one of the most isolated island groups on the planet: the islands lie thousands of kilometres from any continent, have no permanent population beyond the scientific bases and access to them is strictly restricted. That isolation, together with their position in the Antarctic Convergence zone, where the cold waters of the south meet the temperate waters of the north, generates extraordinary marine productivity.

The result is the greatest concentrations of seabirds and marine mammals in the world. The islands hold gigantic colonies of king penguin and macaroni penguin, the world's largest population of wandering albatross and of other albatross species, and great gatherings of southern elephant seal and Antarctic fur seal. The flora includes numerous endemic plants adapted to the constant wind and the cold. The main threats are introduced species — rats, cats, rabbits and reindeer on Kerguelen — illegal fishing for Patagonian toothfish, and climate change, which is shifting the Antarctic Convergence and affecting the bird populations.