Meet Steve Hill, resident permaculturist at Six Senses Zil Pasyon: a man on a mission to restore the endemic habitat of Félicité into the ecological jewel of Seychelles.

"Watch this space, this will be Nature’s own island,” promises Steve Hill. Complete with his Indiana Jones look, Steve has dedicated 10 years to the conservation restoration of Félicité Island. As the resident permaculturist at Six Senses Zil Payson, the group’s most recent resort opening, he identifies and removes invasive species and replaces them with indigenous plants from his vast supply of seedlings and saplings.

His vision? To re-establish an authentic Seychelles environment with native or endemic plants, shrubs and trees. This is a refreshing departure from the artificial landscapes found in other resorts in the region, setting Six Senses apart in terms of eco-responsibility.

It hasn’t been easy. The landscaping team had to remove the tangled mass of invasive Coco plum to re-establish more delicate endemic species, which were collected from seeds from other Seychelles islands.

But it has been worth it. The biodiversity at Félicité Island is now authentic, rich and varied. The habitats are productive, allowing the reintroduction of rare birds that had previously vanished from Félicité as their original habitats deteriorated and disappeared. Now it is not uncommon for guests to see (and hear!) Seychelles Magpie Robin, Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher, Seychelles Whiteye, Seychelles Warbler and Seychelles Fody. The island is becoming an Eden in full song.

The eradication of Coco plum has improved the coastal habitat, and guests at Six Senses will welcome the return of nesting seabirds, such as the charismatic Fairy Tern, the White-tailed tropicbird and the Wedge-tailed shearwater. The island’s Grand Anse beach already attracts a population of nesting hawksbill sea turtles. Now there are exciting plans to reintroduce the native giant tortoise. Félicité is indeed a fitting name!

For more information, please call +248 467 1000 or email reservations-zilpasyon@sixsenses.com.

Creativity meets sustainability! The engineering team from Six Senses Laamu repurposed some unlikely items to build a charcoal oven, now in operation in the resort’s Earth Lab.

This latest ecological project to create a charcoal oven at Six Senses Laamu has been completed through collaboration between the resort’s Earth Lab and engineering teams.

As sustainability represents a core value of Six Senses, and to help overcome the challenges integral to an isolated island, Six Senses Laamu is constantly working towards being self-sufficient. The resort reduces waste as much as possible, either disposing of it responsibly or recycling it onsite.

“Producing our own charcoal for our beach barbecues means we can minimize imports and work towards zero-waste,” says general mechanic Paranthaman Subramiam. The wood for the charcoal comes from waste hardwood, and the wood used to fuel the oven’s fire comes from carpentry scraps such as off-cuts from fences.

The oven is made from an old cylinder of a generator silencer and a defunct cement mixer. A pipe is installed inside which captures the carbon gas, or biogas, released by the wood. It re-circulates the gas into the burning area so that the fire can continuously burn without needing to add more wood. The wood burns for about three hours and then is left to cool before it becomes finished charcoal. The cement mixer wheel makes it easy to load and unload wood in the oven and each batch can produce about 18 kilograms of charcoal.

“The project has used 100 percent recycled material, and cost us nothing,” said Vinod Kumar, assistant chief engineer. “It is a bright example of how expertise and creative thinking can lead to innovation, and significantly benefit the resort's waste management systems.”

For more information, please call +960 680 0800 or email reservations-laamu@sixsenses.com.

The conservation of river areas is everyone’s responsibility, so it’s full stream ahead for this latest project at Six Senses Douro Valley. By joining the Iberian Rivers Project, the resort supports the objectives presented at the United Nations Education for Sustainable Development and contributes to the implementation of the Earth Charter and the Water Framework Directive.

By encouraging social participation from river users and the population in general, the project responds to visible problems, at national and global levels, concerning the deterioration of river quality.

The project is an innovative approach to environmental volunteering through the adoption of a 500-meter stretch of a river or stream. It promotes initiatives around the management of natural resources, waste and biodiversity. It also improves education, awareness and active involvement by the community.

At Six Senses Douro Valley, a team of 12 volunteers will receive orientation training by a representative of the ASPEA - Associação Portuguesa de Educação Ambiental, the body responsible for this project at a national level. They will receive the equipment and tools needed to manage a 500-meter stretch of a small stream that crosses Quinta Vale de Abraão, where Six Senses is located. They will start by rolling their sleeves up to identify special and indigenous plant and animal species!

For more information, please call +351 254 660 600 or email reservations-dourovalley@sixsenses.com.

In the world of food and beverage millions of straws are being used daily. Have you ever wondered what happened to them?

Plastic waste, not only by water bottles, is a pet peeve for Six Senses Zighy Bay. Rather than buy bottled mineral water, they treat and purify their own water originating from the waters of Gulf of Oman. It’s bottled in Six Senses Zighy Bay's glass water bottles and produced in hundreds each day to support guests' choice of either sparkling or still.

Not only that, plastic straws are also a no-no at Six Senses Zighy Bay, where guests are encouraged to dispense with straws. However if a straw is requested, the solution is a paper straw. Recently the resort’s purchasing and food & beverage teams have sourced high quality paper straws which are biodegradable and wouldn't even harm a single marine creature if it made its way out to sea!

For more information on why the resort is so enthusiastic about this, you can follow Six Senses Zighy Bay Facebook to read the recently posted story about the sea turtle with a plastic straw firmly stuck in its nostril. The unfortunate creature was lucky enough to be discovered by marine biologists who extracted the item, albeit with some discomfort and even blood loss.

For more information, please call +968 2673 5555 or email reservations-zighy@sixsenses.com.