Classroom lesson · Black River Gorges National Park · 🇲🇺 Mauritius

Black River Gorges National Park

Mauritius's largest wild forest, home to rare birds and waterfalls

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Black River Gorges National Park is the biggest nature reserve on the island of Mauritius. It covers about 68 square kilometres of thick, green forest, steep valleys, and sparkling waterfalls. Many of Mauritius's rarest birds and plants live here and nowhere else on Earth.

Tell me more

The park sits in the south-west of Mauritius. Trails wind through the trees, past streams and deep gorges — gaps in the land where a river has slowly carved its way through the rock. The forest is so dense in places that the treetops join together overhead, making a cool, shady green tunnel.

Because Mauritius is a small island far out in the Indian Ocean, many of its animals and plants evolved in a completely unique way. The park protects species that would have nowhere else to go. Scientists come from all over the world to study the plants and animals here.

The park is also a favourite walk for Mauritian families. There are viewpoints where you can see right across the green hills to the sea. On a clear day, the view stretches for miles, with the Indian Ocean sparkling in the distance.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Why might protecting a forest on a small island be especially important when there is no more land to expand onto?
  2. 02Mauritius is far from other large landmasses. How might that have made its animals different from animals on a continent?
  3. 03What forests or nature reserves are near where you live? What do they protect?
  4. 04If you could only save one species in the park, how would you choose?
Try this

Classroom activity

On a blank map of Mauritius (print one out), mark where Black River Gorges is in the south-west. Now draw the animals and plants that live there. Compare the size of the park to your school grounds by looking up both areas and working out how many school grounds would fit inside the park.