I AM NOT FROM NOR WILL I LIKELY EVER BE FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO VISIT REUNION ISLAND.
I don't want to mislead anyone with my purpose of joining your Forum.
I am a middle school teacher in the United States who recently tasked my students with learning about "far off lands", using the internet.
Complaints arose -- as they will among pre-teens and teens -- that I was asking too much of them; and before I knew it, I had volunteered to take ANY country or locale they chose, to prove it could be done, that the information is out there, and all one has to do is look for it.
One of my students saw Reunion on the wall map -- and here I am, doing my homework.
What -- or who, actually -- I am looking for is someone familiar with the pre-human history of Reunion Island, as well as the changes that the introduction of humans led to. THIS IS A MIDDLE SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT, not a PhD thesis; I only need very basic information, such as -- and particularly -- native flora and fauna, introduced flora and fauna, recent (as in the past 500 years) geologic events, pictures of the island's natural scenic sights (not the human side of things), and more.
If you have the time to help me with this, I would be grateful -- and if lucky, I might get a satisfactory grade at the end of the school year, when the assignment is due. Yes, that's correct, the students get to grade me!
Thank You for reading,
Bing
(no, not the search engine, the cherry; really!)
American Teacher Needs Help From Reunion Island "Natives"
Welcome on board Bing 
Nice sense of humour for Bing... I have redirected your discussion to the Reunion Island forum for effective networking. I hope you will receive lot of information concerning your queries soon.
Regards
Thank you so very much. I was hesitant to post, since I was not following the concept of the Forum, but I am very glad to be "with" you all. I intend to read here a great deal and learn about Reunion ... or La Reunion ... sorry, I don't know how to do the little mark over the letters, but my Spanish Major daughter does, and I'll have to get her to teach me.
Bing
Hello Bing
Have you checked out online resources like en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Réunion ,
reunionisland.net
ile-de-la-reunion.info/island and news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/4469169.stm ?
If you check out these sites and still have questions I'll be happy to answer them, but I'm sure you'll find these sites will do a lot better job of explaining Reunion's geography than I would !
champacs
travelssmart.blogspot.com/
Hello,
ok here is a historic summary of the Reunion origin and few topics of the place.
You certainly will have to readapt my english and summarise even further the historic part. But then, all this might help a little already.
10th century : reunion, mauritius and rodrigues were discovered by muslims sailors
1502 : Alberto cantino reproduce a muslim map and create the first european map of this island group which were called: iles des mascareignes. (mascareigns islands)
1512 : during the discovery of the maritim routes by the europeans, Pedro de Mascareignas discover the Mascareigns the 9th of february and baptised Reunion island by the name of the saint of the day: Santa Apollonia
1613 : on 23rd of march, the dutch admiral Verhuff makes a halt in the island and called it England's forest. He discribes a paradisiac virgin island full of parrows, turtles, rivers, which were very easy to kill...
1638 : 25th of june, France takes over the Mascareignes islands.
1642 : 29th june, they arrive in Reunion, St Paul (on the west coast) this is the 2nd take over.
1646: 12 people are left alone on the island until 1649 and obliged to leave, they were angry as they wished to stay and to their description to Flacourt (french man) the island starts to be of great interest and is baptised Bourbon Island. They leave a male cow and pigs, the island is still virgin. this is the 3rd take over.
1654 : 2nd colonisation by people of no good company
1663 : the island becomes a complete colony and the 1st french Indian ocean base.
1665 : a group of 30 to 35 people live on the island
1667 : creation of St Denis and Ste Suzanne
1671 : 76 people live on Bourbon island.
things happen...
1718 : coffee's new richness of the island is of important economic matter
1719 : the island 'welcomes' 1500 slaves to contribute to the economic adventure. They come from Africa, India and Madagascar.
1735 : Bertrand Francois Mahe de la Bourdonnais becomes the first governor of the island and Mauritius.
others changes up to today...
All the animals in place were killed to be eaten. Like the turtles, birds and the famous 'Dodo' -a huge kind of chicken- find a picture- And it didn't take long as in the meantime the people didn't install any cultures to compensate the loss...
Reunion island is a multi cultural, racial place, where all cultures and religions live together. It is as we say here : a little laboratory of the world. A good example of success of differences living together in peace. It is also called here the 'Intense island'
The faune and flora is so rich: mountains, lakes and rivers, colorful fishes like parrot fish, and plenty of colorful strange -but kind- spiders, jeckos, chameleons, birds like famous here 'Paille en queue' (it is white and fine with a long tail and flies high)... Endemic animal, trees and flowering plants species (around 225)
-we had a very bad mosquito 3 years ago, but gone now.
Around 125 micro climates too.
We can walk, climb, dive, paraglide, swim, horse ride, barbecue by the sea,etc.. all year.
There are 3 principal crater valley called cirques: Mafate, Cilaos and Salazie. Mafate can be joined only by helicopter or walking, beautiful sightseeings.
A Volcano called 'Piton de la Fournaise' is one of the most active in the world
the 'Piton des Neiges' is 3,069 meters high (10,069 ft). Around august you can find snow...
they are beautiful market places selling fishs, flowers, veggies and fruits, hats, etc.. very colorful and smily places.
People here are relaxed and easy going, friendly.
a language called 'Creole' is the language used here, beside french. A mixture of french mainly, indo-portugase, madagascar. very funny and singing language, full of images.
for pictures, i can only invite you to look through the web, you will find many of them.
Tell your students that the world is connected and the more they'll look for knowledge, information, open up their consciousness, the more aware they will be of what's life really (which you know..*)
Don't hesitate to contact me for further details if i can help, i will.
Audrey
Bing,
Champacs has been more precise her infos will be much greater help and in terms of english*
La Reunion le la ! - 'reunion's here'-
audrey
hi!
we can add too, that REUNION 'ISLAND administratively is one of the overseas departements of FRANCE... like the others overseas departements , Reunion also is one of the 27 regions of France .. so an integral part of the Republic with the same status as those situated on the Europeen Mainland..
Geographicaly Reunion is similar to Hawaii because both are located above hotspots in the Earth's crust ... hawaii and Reunion have the same kind of vulcano ... Reunion is a small island but big by her mountains and diversity of landscapes .... hoping that give you a idea of Reunion island and for A little story : few people knows that a native of Reunion Island , a slave' s son , Edmond Albius invented a technique for pollinating vanilla orchid quikly and profitably. in 1841 , at age 12 Albius discovered how to pollinate the vanilla orchid with a thin stick or blade of grass and a simple thumb gesture... Albius 's manual pollination method is still used today , as nearly all vanilla is pollinated by hand after Albius's discovery...
my best to you
