21 hours ago
The man who turned a polluted pirate hotspot into a fly-fishing paradise
After the pirates hijacked the boat we chartered, the government shut down the whole Outer Islands of Seychelles. We weren't allowed back to Cosmoledo for five years.'
The man who tells me this looks as if he was built outdoors. Sun-burnished and wind-drawn, Keith Rose-Innes is an adventurer, entrepreneur, fly-fishing guide and current custodian of Cosmoledo atoll.
I try not to think about Somali pirates with AK-47s as I shift my feet in the sand. Cosmoledo is a faraway island paradise by any measure. From London I flew to Dubai, caught a plane to Mahé, the main island of the Seychelles, before taking a 14-seater turboprop for a two-and-a-half-hour flight to Astove Atoll. I then waded over the coral and turtle grass to board a small boat, eventually landing on Cosmoledo an hour later.
I am rewarded by the sight of 100,000 sooty terns circling each other in a dizzying mating dance. Their squawks, and the ripple of waves, are the only soundtrack. It is a truly grand spectacle to see so many birds, as they flock – each evening throughout the spring – to the same patch of sky. In just a few hours I've seen a giant coconut crab – the world's largest terrestrial arthropod, which is diminishing in numbers – scuttle past. Ringed plovers gorge on washed-up shrimp in the surf line. Frigatebirds, pirates of the sky, snatch food from red-footed boobies midair, and baby turtles, smaller than teabags, stutter out of their nests, making their maiden voyage to salt water.
It's easy to believe that life abounds here thanks to a lucky cocktail of remoteness and climate. The truth is much more fragile.
Without the determination and vision of Rose-Innes and his team, Cosmoledo could easily have become just another item in the list of miraculous places now withering in the dark shadow of human interference. And this story of restoration has an unlikely beginning: the sport of fly-fishing.
Rose-Innes grew up catching trout with his grandfather in South Africa, and on trips across the continent with his father. After a stint of studying to be an art director in Cape Town, the call of fish – and the wild places they live in – was too strong. To get his foot in the fly-fishing door he rigged tackle for hedge fund managers in London's legendary fishing shop, Farlows, in Mayfair.
In 1999, at the age of 22, he started guiding on the more accessible islands of the Seychelles. During the off season, he would lead anglers on a far-flung salmon river in Arctic Russia. He began chartering dive boats, filling them with fly-fishermen, and exploring the Seychelles.
'The fishing was mind-blowing,' he says, 'and I was young, ambitious and competitive. I wanted my clients to catch the biggest fish, to grow the business and to build my name. We were getting more bookings, and so I started looking for more fishing grounds; ideally another atoll, so we could run a second boat.'
These were the days before Google Earth. Rose-Innes searched for a new atoll the old-fashioned way, squinting at maps in a dusty colonial office on Mahé. It was here that he found a nautical chart of Cosmoledo. The elegant typeface at the top read, 'From a survey by Comdr. W.J.L. Wharton in 1878… with corrections by Comdr. D.W. Haslam, HMS Owen, 1964.'
He first laid eyes on Cosmoledo in 2005. 'Those first trips were like the Wild West. On the first day we grounded Mieke, a 100ft schooner. The old charts I had picked up were all wrong.'
After spending time walking among the atoll's 18 islands and 145 square kilometres of reef flats, they began to grasp the scale of the opportunity. Soon there was a waiting list of people looking to join Rose-Innes on a trip there. For a few years his business thrived.
On the morning of 27 March 2009, Rose-Innes was aboard one of the boats he chartered, the Mayas Dugong, preparing for another day on the water. Two hundred and fifty miles to the west, his second boat, the Indian Ocean Explorer, was wrapping up after hosting fishing groups on Cosmoledo. His radio crackled: 'Pirates have taken Indian Ocean Explorer.'
The day before, Indian Ocean Explorer had left Cosmoledo and sailed to Assumption, a nearby island with a landing strip, where it had dropped Rose-Innes's business partner and the last clients of the season for their return home. Left on board was Captain Francis Rouco and his Seychellois crew. A little before midnight the boat was stormed by 11 pirates carrying AK-47s, and ordered to set sail for Somalia – an open ocean crossing of some 800 miles.
When they anchored in Somalia, the haul was considered disappointing. These pirates had, months earlier, hijacked the Sirius Star, carrying two million barrels of crude oil. Before that they'd bagged Faina, a freighter carrying 33 Russian tanks. Had they been 24 hours earlier with the Indian Ocean Explorer they would have had a group of wealthy Western tourists, and with them a healthy ransom price.
After eight weeks, the Seychelles government paid a ransom of $450,000 and the crew returned home. The pirates burned and sank the Indian Ocean Explorer.
By the spring of 2009 the West was losing patience with the scourge of piracy around the Gulf of Aden. Just 12 days after the hijacking of the Indian Ocean Explorer, four Somali pirates, aged between 15 and 18, took control of the Maersk Alabama, a cargo ship carrying 401 containers of USAID food destined for refugee centres across East Africa. It was the first time a ship under the US flag had fallen to pirates since 1815.
After a standoff, snipers from US Navy Seal Team Six shot three of the pirates and captured the fourth. Subsequently, dozens of US warships, manned by NATO forces, patrolled the area and dismantled pirate settlements.
There were 237 attempted hijackings in the region in 2011 and just two (failed) attempts in 2014. Now, for more than a decade, there hasn't been a flicker of piracy around the Seychelles' seas.
But for Rose-Innes and his team, 2009 was a sobering time. In many cases guests had paid large deposits for their trips on Indian Ocean Explorer, and they expected to be refunded. Much of the money had already been spent because operating at such extreme remoteness requires both resources and planning. They looked into options to relocate their business, but pristine atolls like Cosmoledo are rare.
During this enforced absence from the Outer Islands, Rose-Innes realised he wanted to do more than just guide fly-fishing trips. He struck a partnership with a fellow South African, businessman Murray Collins, who shared Rose-Innes's passion for conservation. Together they launched an eco-tourism company called Blue Safari Seychelles.
As piracy became a distant memory, the Seychelles government started reopening the outer atolls. In March 2014 Rose-Innes returned to Cosmoledo. 'What I found wasn't the Eden I left behind. It was a butcher shop. Commercial fishermen from the Comoros and Madagascar had set up a temporary camp on one of the islands. It was now an abandoned settlement: fish carcasses and turtle shells, drying racks, buckets for salting sea cucumbers, piles of burned garbage. It was clear they'd put a hell of a lot of pressure on the place. This was a defining moment.
'I realised that if we're going to protect these atolls, we need to have a permanent presence. We can't just show up for a fishing season and then bugger off back to South Africa.'
Although the Cosmoledo that Rose-Innes found when he first visited back in 2005 was uninhabited, it was far from untouched. The encampments he saw when he returned after the atoll's closure were just the latest in a long list of exploitative industries. Although Cosmoledo was reputedly visited by the Portuguese navigator João da Nova in the 15th century, the first recorded exploration of the atoll was in 1822 by the Royal Navy. Humans started to settle on the various islands around 1880. For the next century it was used as a whaling station, guano was mined and mangrove bark was stripped.
It was also a prolific turtle fishery. Up to 7,000 green turtles per year were harvested on behalf of Campbell's Soup Company. The hawksbill turtles were killed for tortoiseshell ornaments and green snails were taken to make mother-of-pearl trinkets. Land was even cleared in an attempt to cultivate sea island cotton. All of these industries failed, and the place was abandoned in 1992. By the time Rose-Innes returned, Cosmoledo's eco-system was hanging by a thread.
He knew they needed to act fast in order to protect the atoll. Rose-Innes and Murray approached the Seychelles government and submitted plans to build a permanent lodge. 'They were, rightly, nervous about having a human presence here. This is one of the last pristine they agreed we could put something up on a trial basis, as long as it was all removable. They were clear: this isn't the Maldives. They don't want anything built into the water, disrupting the coral. There can be no light pollution. It was very strict, and rightly so.'
With a lease in place and permission granted, the lodge was built in 2018. 'Lodge' is a euphemism: the rooms are converted shipping containers with outdoor showers, and the main eating areas are large safari-style tents. The only building with any sense of permanence is the small cyclone shelter. However, the containers are converted luxuriously, aiming to please a clientele with deep enough pockets to make the journey – but the ecological imperative being that the whole camp could be lifted without leaving a trace if necessary.
The project began as an elite fly-fishing destination. Rose-Innes's customers ranged from angling addicts, who saved for years to get their hit of wilderness adventure, to time-poor captains of industry in pursuit of the finest fishing on the planet. Soon his horizons broadened beyond selling fishing trips. More comfortable accommodations opened the door to wildlife tourism; ocean-going safaris where guests observe the atoll's web of life.
His permanent presence also meant constant surveillance – both to deter illegal fishing vessels and facilitate research. The Blue Safari team amounts to 20 people during the season, but there are always at least four on the atoll all year round, maintaining the camp and keeping watch.
Not everyone on the atoll is an employee of Rose-Innes however. 'Running a place like Cosmoledo, it's critical to work closely with the goverment. We take a collaborative approach.'
Each year Rose-Innes and his team participate in the monitoring of turtle populations, take a census of the sooty terns, count myriad other seabird colonies, and undertake significant beach clean-up operations. Cosmoledo isn't immune to the plague of plastic that taints our oceans, whether it's a washed-up flip-flop or a 300ft fishing net.
New projects are starting all the time. Research is currently ongoing into coral health, as well as the impacts of eradicating rats from the atoll in 2007. The most significant development is the inclusion of Cosmoledo in the Seychelles Marine Spatial Plan, in which 30 per cent of Seychelles territory is designated as a Marine Protected Area.
Rose-Innes is tentative: 'This is a big step forward, and we've been involved with the government on this since the beginning. But we're still awaiting the exact frameworks, and we need to ensure that they really do adequately protect these places.'
The sun bounces off the water on to my face as I gaze up at a troop of red-tailed tropic birds overhead. I hop aboard a skiff with an outboard motor, fly rod in hand. The shallow draft allows us to drift silently over the sand flats, while the guide directs us with a push pole. Wild fish in only a few feet of water require a stealthy approach. My guide today is Brandon Poole, who's been here since the beginning. A cigarette hangs from his lips as he scans the water.
'How is it different to the old days, when you first started here?' I ask. 'Well, if Keith hadn't put the lodge here, then this atoll would be in a terrible state. Every year when we'd come back from being away for six months, we wouldn't find fishing boats, but there would be signs of poaching. Now, we see the odd boat, maybe once or twice a season. We call the coastguard, and they come and arrest them and sink the boats.' He pauses. 'Keith loves this place. He'll do anything he can to protect it.'
'Do you see that sting ray?' he suddenly exclaims. 'There's a couple of giant trevally feeding around it. It's coming at 11 o'clock, 30 yards. This is your shot. Lead it. Good. Now, strip, strip. Set!'
With a shocking speed the trevally sees my fly and sprints toward it, mouth agape, crushing the six-inch-long imitation of a bait fish. It is the definition of frenzied gluttony. The line peels from my reel as the fish charges towards the edge of the reef, where it will find pillars of sharp coral and sever our connection. 'Hold it. Tighten the drag.'
Poole bends down to start the motor of the skiff and give chase. It is a tense few minutes. My arms start to ache. The fish is now close, and I am thankful when Poole reaches into the water and grabs it by the tail. He slides the hook from its mouth. He hands me the fish and I hold it upright for a few moments, studying the large eyes that can spot prey through the turbulent ocean, and marvel at the strength of its tail that can generate such speed.
'I came for the fly fishing, but I now stay for the whole ecosystem,' says Rose-Innes. 'I'm just as happy walking the surf line looking at the wildlife as I am with a fly rod in my hand.'
Rose-Innes's wife and children live mostly in South Africa, which has a more family-friendly infrastructure than the middle of the Indian Ocean, while he has spent 'the last 25 years travelling constantly back and forth to the Seychelles'. The week after my trip, his 13-year-old son, Pano, is due to visit, his first trip to Cosmoledo. I wonder if he will experience it in the same way that Rose-Innes has.
Rose-Innes pauses. 'I'm worried,' he admits. 'We're at a pivotal moment. I'm always talking to the government here, and I'm hopeful about new conservation initiatives. But it will only take a line of cruise ships showing up with 100 people on board to ruin these islands. And we already see climate impacts. The outer islands used to avoid coral bleaching, but last year, it was bad.'
There is a sense of optimism here however. Cosmoledo is more than just a paradise: it's an argument, a model of what conservation can look like when the balance is right. Across the Indian Ocean, once-pristine atolls have buckled under unchecked tourism and short-term gain. In the Maldives, coral reefs have been dredged to build airport runways and artificial islands. In Mauritius, oil spills and overdevelopment have scarred fragile environments. The contrast with Cosmoledo is stark: here, limited access, light-touch infrastructure, and a clear conservation mandate have created one of the healthiest marine ecosystems on Earth.
This week, the world's leaders will assemble for the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France. From air-conditioned and marble-floored halls, they'll make pledges, pose for photos, and talk about 'accelerating action'. Meanwhile, on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere, Keith Rose-Innes and his dedicated team are doing it. An atoll that was once defined by exploitation is now overflowing with marine life.
It may be too late for the mega-resorts and Instagram wedding venues that have already been built, but not far from here lies the British Indian Ocean Territory – the Chagos Archipelago – perhaps the most pristine set of atolls left on Earth. It's currently a military base and a geopolitical football, but with sovereignty likely returning to Mauritius, the question isn't just who owns it, but who protects it?
Mauritius could choose to go the way of its mainland. Or it could follow the vision of Rose-Innes and the beacon of Cosmoledo – where guest numbers are limited, structures leave no scars, and the only pirates left are the soaring, angular frigatebirds.
