AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Forêt de Bébour is a vast primary cloud forest on the highlands of Réunion island, part of the UNESCO World Heritage core zone of Réunion National Park. Reached by a single forest road from La Plaine-des-Palmistes, it plunges the visitor into one of the Indian Ocean's most pristine montane forests — a world of gnarled trees wrapped in epiphytes, tree ferns rising like green umbrellas above the canopy, and an ever-present mist that gives everything an otherworldly glow.↗↗↗
Since 1994, over 74% of the forest has been a protected biological reserve spanning from roughly 1,200 m up to the summit of Piton des Neiges at 3,070 m. It shelters more than 400 native vascular plant species, nearly 40% found nowhere else on Earth, and is threaded by waymarked trails that make this extraordinary biodiversity accessible to hikers of all levels.↗
A Living Relic of Réunion's Fourth Cirque
Bébour sits on the floor of what geologists consider Réunion's fourth cirque — a collapsed volcanic basin later filled by lava flows from Piton des Neiges between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago. The resulting plateau slopes gently from the volcano's flanks westward down toward the dramatic River des Marsouins gorge to the east. This unique geological backstory produced some of the island's most intact primary forest, largely spared from the agricultural clearing that stripped lowland Réunion over the past three centuries.