TURTLE CONSERVATION THROUGH EDUCATION & PARTNERSHIPS
In the first article titled “Championing Turtle Conservation in the Maldives,” Elisa Spampinato from Traveller Storyteller chatted with Ish, the first local Sea Turtle Biologist in the country and Program Manager for Olive Ridley Project Maldives.
In this second installment, Elisa delves into why education, local partnerships and community involvement are important to the success of turtle conservation.
Enjoy their conversation!
EDUCATION FOR ALL
What exactly does a Sea Turtle Biologist do?
My question to Ish opens another interesting part of the conversation, where her commitment to her work, but also to her culture, emerges.
Education work with guests is key and the collaboration with the resorts, as mentioned, is crucial. However, the education work is not only directed towards the visitors, but also strongly towards the local kids, and this is something that is visibly very close to Ish’s heart.
Although we now have proof that, in the Maldives, there is substantial but undocumented indigenous knowledge and also conservation practices to selectively manage nesting turtles and nesting beaches, some of this knowledge might get lost or diluted with time. For various reasons linked to the development and history of the country – which we might discuss on another occasion – we can detect a gap in knowledge in the new generations. The older generations, of course, were more in touch with, and coexisted with, nature. ‘They understood the tides, why the weather changes, and why the island was the way it was,’ as Ish put it.
With modernisation, all this knowledge is getting lost, she admitted with sadness. The complexity of this reality, of which Ish sees the different layers, due to being a scientist and a local community member, has led her to get fully involved with the education aspect.
Nowadays, more modern textbooks focusing on environmental issues are available to Maldivian kids. However, it is also true that these are often printed abroad and, unfortunately, don’t take into account local knowledge. Above all, they don’t engage the students in a way that gets them in touch with nature and this might contribute to increasing the knowledge gap.
Also, we need to consider that the Maldives is a very dispersed country – 871+ km from north to south – and not all the islands have access to the same kind of information that the capital, Male, and the other nearby islands and atolls might get.
For all these reasons, I understood the joy with which our Maldivian biologist talked about the success of The Vaavoshi Festival of 2022. This was the first multi-atoll sea turtle festival held in the Maldives which, while also re-establishing a connection between the neighbourhood islanders after COVID, aimed to be a very practical educational tool for the local people.
ORP partnered with eight local schools, to whom they provided funding and the admin and logistical support for the event. Then the schools themselves co-hosted the festival, which was a great success. Many daily activities were organised with learning outcomes including beach cleaning, sand sculptures and poster competitions, all focusing on the importance of protecting sea turtles.
Secret Paradise’s team enthusiastically participated too, wearing costumes and helping to deliver the activities for the kids. The young protagonists gave their best performance when they paraded through the community dressed up as marine animals or as the problems that afflict the natural environment, attracting the attention of all the adults on their home island.
‘It meant a lot to us to see that level of engagement,’ shared Ish, and continued by reinforcing that, ‘it also meant a lot to those islands because the local islands very rarely get the chance to hold festivals,’ – these are usually held in the capital, Male. ‘And it was beautiful for the kids, as well,’ concluded Ish with a big warm smile.
INDIGENOUS LINKS TO RECOVER
Ish started working on the island of Gaadhoo with the specific goal of establishing a community-driven conservation project, and also bringing the local indigenous knowledge to the surface, valuing it and integrating it with the modern science and data technologies currently available, which she masters and constantly practices.
Through her eyes, I was able to see the complexity of the Maldivian reality and the constant awareness and monitoring work that needs to be done.
The presence of local indigenous conservation practices to manage the nesting turtles and the beaches on the island of Gaadhoo was first highlighted by academic papers in the 1980s. It has been proved that local communities can find up to 100 turtles nesting on the beach every night. Thanks to their diligent monitoring efforts, they enforced selective take of turtle eggs and protected the nesting females on the island since, at that time, sea turtle egg and meat consumption was not yet banned.
Restrictions started in 1995 when the first concerns about declining sea turtle population were raised. In 2006, for the first time, the government banned the take of eggs from Gaadhoo along with another 13 hotspots, but it was only in 2016 that turtles were fully protected. However, the 2006 ban in Gaadhoo had the unintended consequences of disempowering the community’s conservation efforts and sadly, by the time Gaadhoo’s community was relocated to neighbouring Fonadhoo in 2016, nesting had declined by 40%. Between 2018 and 2021, it was calculated that 60-80% of the total eggs were illegally harvested to be eaten or sold. As a result of the data collected by ORP and the partners in MUI, in 2021 Gaadhoo was recognised as a Protected Area by the Maldives government and placed under the Environmental Protection Agency of Maldives (EPA).
In 2023, ORP, together with EPA, established a community-based Sea Turtle Ranger programme to monitor L. Gaadhoo’s nesting and illegal take activities, with support from atoll and island councils and NGOs. Nesting is a delicate time for the turtles, in which both the mother and the eggs are particularly vulnerable and fragile, and the engagement of the local community has positively affected the battle against the illegal take there. It is worth noting that Gaadhoo is one of the most significant sea turtle nesting hotspots in the entire country.
ORP and EPA, with the active involvement of the local communities of Laamu atoll, intend to give visibility, but also credibility, to ancient practices and to move towards the common goals of marine conservation with an integral approach. ‘Our [ORP’s] work is important but integrating communities into the work is equally – if not more – impactful.’
EXPANDING THE PARTNERSHIPS
‘We cannot be everywhere,’ stressed Ish, therefore the choice of partnerships becomes even more crucial. This includes partnerships with resorts but also with other local stakeholders.
Secret Paradise (SP), in this, has been a pioneer. In mid-2022 SP reached out to ORP to ask for some training from them. In Ish’s words, ‘That was the first time that a tourism company that is not based at a resort reached out to us – it was exciting ‘.
Risha, ORP’s Education & Outreach Coordinator, and Ish came up with the Sea Turtle Guardian Programme, which covers everything from sea turtle biology to nesting, how to collect photo-ID, how to rescue a turtle and how to behave around them.
At the end of the training, all the staff members became certified Sea Turtle Guardians, and therefore official ambassadors, but most importantly, a vessel for the scientific knowledge that is so valuable for the tourists to acquire, because it will support the work, rather than moving against it. Today there are many certified Sea Turtle Guardians, but SP were the first people to do it.
This partnership is strengthening and continues to provide regular training updates to staff.
By participating in the Turtle Snorkeling Conservation Cruise, which SP has recently launched in collaboration with ORP, you will have the chance to work directly with their scientists and assist with research and turtle data collection. You will also learn, in-depth, about the unique Maldivian ecosystem and the conservation challenges it faces but, most importantly, you will become an active protector of the biodiversity and marine life of the Maldives.
Snorkeling diverse reefs and marine tropical waters in a responsible way, enjoying the experience while consciously protecting the Maldivian environment and its marvellous wildlife, and actively contributing to its conservation can feel – and look – really cool!
Want to learn more about turtles? Sign up to Olive Ridley Project free online courses where you can learn at your own pace.
