The Plateau des Tourbières (in English the Plateau of Bogs) comprises the highest upland region of

Amsterdam Island Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban area ...

, a small French territory in the southern

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

. Over 500 m above sea level, it contains the island's highest peaks: Mont de la Dives (881 m), Grande Marmite (742 m) and Mont Fernand (731 m).

Environment

The lower-lying areas of the island were mainly covered by a woodland of '' Phylica arborea'' trees mixed with

fern A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes exce ...

s before the vegetation was devastated by a combination of wood-cutting, anthropogenic

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identi ...

and

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to roam around and consume wild vegetations in order to convert the otherwise indigestible (by human gut) cellulose within grass and other ...

feral cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...

, and became replaced by exotic grassland. The vegetation of the plateau, however, was not grazed by the cattle and remains in a largely natural state, consisting mainly of

sphagnum ''Sphagnum'' is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, peat moss, also bog moss and quacker moss (although that term is also sometimes used for peat). Accumulations of ''Sphagnum'' can store wa ...

bogs and mosses, with the dwarf shrub '' Acaena magellanica''.

Important Bird Area

The plateau has been identified as an 800 ha Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it is the only breeding site in the world for the critically endangered Amsterdam albatross. The species has a biennial breeding system with an average of 20 pairs breeding each year in a loose colony on the plateau. The total population of the albatross is about 150 individuals. The only other bird present is the

brown skua The brown skua (''Stercorarius antarcticus''), also known as the Antarctic skua, subantarctic skua, southern great skua, southern skua, or hākoakoa (Māori), is a large seabird that breeds in the subantarctic and Antarctic zones and moves furthe ...

, with some 40 breeding pairs.BirdLife International. (2012). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Plateau des Tourbières. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 2012-01-08.

References

Notes

Sources

* * Île Amsterdam Mountains of France Tourbieres Landforms of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands Important Bird Areas of Île Amsterdam Seabird colonies {{FrenchSouthernTerritories-geo-stub