La Réunion

La Réunion National Park was created in 2007 and protects some 1,054 km², around 40% of the area of this volcanic island in the Indian Ocean. In 2010 UNESCO inscribed on the World Heritage List the property "Pitons, cirques and remparts of Reunion Island", which coincides in large part with the park's core zone.

The island is the emergent summit of a shield volcano raised over a hotspot. Its interior relief is spectacular: three cirques — Cilaos, Mafate and Salazie — are enormous erosional amphitheatres opened in the old edifice of the Piton des Neiges, now dormant and the island's summit at 3,070 metres, ringed by vertical ramparts hundreds of metres high. Mafate has no road at all and can be reached only on foot or by helicopter. To the south-east rises the Piton de la Fournaise, one of the most active volcanoes on the planet, with almost annual eruptions.

The combination of oceanic isolation, altitude and extreme rainfall has produced a flora of extremely high endemism, with montane forest, high-altitude heathland and unique formations. The native land fauna was drastically reduced after colonisation, but severely threatened endemic birds such as Barau's petrel and the tuit-tuit survive, and the park runs invasive species control programmes that are its main management challenge.