Introduction

Mauritius is a 1,865 m2 oceanic island found within the Mascarene archipelago in the Indian Ocean some 900 km east of Madagascar around latitude 20o15' S and longitude 57o30'E with the highest point of the island being at 828 m above sea level (Saddul,1995). (Figure 9.1).

Although found on Arab mariner charts as early as 1300 AD and visited since then by sailors of various origins, such as the Portuguese, it was only colonized by the Dutch in 1638 AD (Cheke and Hume, 2008). After the Dutch, the island was colonized by the French followed by the British before attaining independence in 1968. Mauritius has had a Republic status since 1992 and a population of 1.26M (CSO, 2007), making it the eighteenth most densely populated country in the world. The official language is English, but the local dialect, the Mauritian Creole, is closer to French, making the latter a more used language than English. The Mauritian population is ethnically very diverse with people of Indian origin (68 percent), descended mostly from the indentured laborers from India composed of people from different religious backgrounds – Hindus, Muslims, Tamils, Telegus, Marathis, etc. The next largest ethnic group is composed of Creoles (27 percent) – people descended mostly from slaves brought over from Madagascar and Africa. People of Chinese origin, mostly descended from Chinese immigrants from Guangzhou compose 3 percent of the population and the remaining 2 percent are made of people of European descent (mostly from France) and some other minorities.