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Mauritius is a small island of 1,865 square kilometres. This is equivalent to a third of the surface of Savoy. It is situated in the Indian Ocean at 20° south of the equator, on the east of Madagascar. Mauritius is a land without any evidence of human habitation until the seventeenth century. As a result, Mauritius has no indigenous population in the traditional sense, according to the definition from the United Nations: Indigenous peoples have been defined by U.N. as those having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their own territories, consider themselves distinct from the other sectors of society prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institution and legal systems (http://esaconf.un.org/WB/default.asp? action=9&boardid=30&read=1826&fid=309).