Brendon Grimshaw bought Moyenne Island in the 1960s, then spent his life restoring its ecosystem and protecting it from development.
Marion KaplanBrendon Grimshaw on Moyenne Island, circa 2003.
Moyenne Island has been a paradise for native flora and fauna in the Indian Ocean for decades. But this wasn’t always the case. The island’s thriving ecosystem is all thanks to a man named Brendon Grimshaw.
Abandoned in the early 20th century, Moyenne Island became badly neglected. Weeds took over, birds left, and the most common animals on the island became the rats living in the choked underbrush of the forest.
But to Grimshaw, it looked like paradise. The former newspaper editor bought the island in 1962, and set out to restore its natural beauty. Today, Moyenne Island is teeming with trees, birds, and giant tortoises — and it is considered the smallest national park in the world.
Here’s a deeper look at Brendon Grimshaw, the man who turned the struggling island into a sanctuary.
Brendon Grimshaw, The Newspaper Man
Born in 1925 in Yorkshire, England, Brendon Grimshaw entered the newspaper business at a young age. He got his start writing for publications like the Batley News and the Sheffield Star and, by the age of 23, became the youngest chief reporter in Britain.
But Grimshaw was adventurous. Seeking a change, he began looking for work abroad. As he later wrote in his memoir, A Grain of Sand: The Story of One Man and an Island, eventually found a job as an editor with the East African Standard in Nairobi, Kenya, and later worked at the Tanganyika Standard in Tanzania.
Findagrave.comBrendon Grimshaw in an undated photo.
Life in Africa was thrilling, if sometimes dangerous (Grimshaw reportedly had to carry a shoulder-holster with him at one point because of nationalistic uprisings) but it suited him. He continued to work in Africa until the 1960s. But at that point, things in the world started to shift.
Tanzania became independent from Britain in 1961; Kenya became independent in 1963. Jobs like Grimshaw’s would soon pass to locals, and Grimshaw started thinking about his next move.
Brendon Grimshaw began to think about how he wanted to spend the rest of his life. And a trip to the Seychelles would change everything.
Brendon Grimshaw Finds Paradise In The Seychelles Islands
Brendon Grimshaw, then 37 years old, decided to go on vacation in the Seychelles, a series of islands off the coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, in 1962. He was blown away by their natural beauty.
Camera Eye/Wikimedia CommonsMoyenne Island is now part of a national park, but it was once the home of Brendon Grimshaw.
Grimshaw wanted to own land there. He wanted to buy an island. But that seemed like an unattainable dream. Buying an island isn’t cheap, after all, and while he’d had a career as a successful journalist, Grimshaw didn’t have that kind of money.
Then, Brendon Grimshaw came upon a stroke of luck. As the story goes, Grimshaw was on Mahé Island on his second-to-last day when a man approached him and asked him the very question Grimshaw had wanted to hear. The man knew of an island for sale and it came with a reasonable price: £8,000 pounds (roughly $10,000 dollars, or about $300,000 today).
Grimshaw joined the man on a trip to an island called Moyenne, near Mahé. It hadn’t been occupied since 1915 and, in that time, the island had become overgrown. Weeds and undergrowth choked the surface of the island, rats were rampant, and, according to an interview Grimshaw gave to the BBC in 2012, there were just four trees.
A lot of work would be needed to get the place back to a thriving state. But it was a challenge Brendon Grimshaw was ready to take on.
So, Grimshaw bought the land. Moyenne Island was now his.
Working with René Antoine Lafortune, the son of a local fisherman, Grimshaw began the monumental task of restoring Moyenne Island’s wildlife. The two had their work cut out of them.
Findagrave.comWhat started as a project to build a home more connected to nature became a mission to create a sanctuary for plant and animal life on the island.
They cleared out the undergrowth, which was once so thick that falling coconuts reportedly never hit the ground. They pulled out invasive plants and weeds that had made it difficult for native plants to flourish, and began to plant trees. The two men also created trails which wound through the island so that future visitors could enjoy its natural beauty.
The pair ultimately planted over 16,000 trees. Birds returned to the island, and Grimshaw brought over giant tortoises. Giant tortoises were native to the region, but had been largely killed off — yet soon, there were over 100 living on Moyenne Island.
In other words, Brendon Grimshaw had transformed the neglected island into a natural paradise.
The Restoration Of Moyenne Island — And How It’s Protected Today
David Stanley/Wikimedia CommonsToday, Moyenne Island has a thriving ecosystem, and is protected as a national park.
At the same time that Moyenne Island became more and more of a natural paradise, developers began to eye the Seychelles as tourism in the area skyrocketed. But Grimshaw sought to protect his island from development. He denied offers to buy the island — even offers as much as $50 million — and struck a deal with the Seychelles’ Ministry of Environment to make Moyenne Island a national park in 2009.
Today, it’s considered the smallest national park in the world.
By then, Brendon Grimshaw had become the island’s sole (human) resident. His father had briefly joined him, but passed away, and LaFortune died in 2007. Grimshaw lived alone on the island with his turtles until his death on July 3, 2012, at the age of 86. He was buried on the island alongside his father, and two unknown pirates.
In his will, Grimshaw declared that “Moyenne Island is to be maintained as a venue for prayer, peace, tranquillity, relaxation and knowledge for Seychellois and visitors from overseas of all nationalities, colours and creeds.” The island is now overseen by Suketu Patel, a long-time friend of Grimshaw and the operator of the the Moyenne Island Foundation.
Today, people can visit Moyenne Island as part of organized tours of Sainte Anne Marine National Park. Just as Grimshaw wished, the park has remained a sanctuary, untouched by developers.
After reading about the life of Brendon Grimshaw, discover the story Tristan Da Cunha, the most isolated inhabited island on the planet. Then, learn about Jonathan the tortoise, the oldest animal in the world.
