Fay­ola Fras­er

Lo­cat­ed on Trinidad’s north­east­ern coast, the sea­side com­mu­ni­ty of Matu­ra is home to few­er than 1,500 res­i­dents. It boasts a rugged, sprawl­ing coast­line that, for decades, served as a beloved recre­ation­al spot for fam­i­lies, a prime fish­ing ground, and—un­til the 1980s—a haven for poach­ers. Life in Matu­ra was sim­ple, deeply con­nect­ed to the rhythms of the sea and land. Yet be­neath this peace­ful sur­face, a cri­sis was brew­ing.

En­dan­gered sea tur­tles that came ashore to nest faced re­lent­less poach­ing. Eggs were har­vest­ed, and adult tur­tles killed with lit­tle re­straint. At the time, poach­ing was of­ten seen less as a crime than as a gen­er­a­tional tra­di­tion. Re­ports from the era not­ed that one in every three tur­tles that came ashore was killed.

It would take the de­ter­mi­na­tion of one young res­i­dent, Suzan Lakhan-Bap­tiste, to change this cul­ture and lead her com­mu­ni­ty to­ward in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion for host­ing one of the largest tur­tle nest­ing sites in the re­gion.

Born the sev­enth of eleven chil­dren, Lakhan-Bap­tiste lost her fa­ther at just four years old and was raised by her moth­er. Af­ter at­tend­ing Matu­ra Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry, she earned a five-year schol­ar­ship to St. An­drew’s High School in San­gre Grande. Fol­low­ing sec­ondary school, she joined the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment as a clerk. Though the work did not chal­lenge her in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly as she had hoped, it honed her peo­ple skills and al­lowed her to find joy in help­ing se­niors col­lect their pen­sions.

Mean­while, the beach of her child­hood—Matu­ra Beach—was un­der siege.

“It was a grave­yard,” she re­calls. “The stench of the beach, full of dead tur­tle car­cass­es, was hor­ri­ble.”

Gov­ern­ment re­search and re­ports in the 1980s, in­clud­ing the 1984 study Ma­rine Tur­tle Man­age­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go with Spe­cif­ic Ref­er­ence to the Leatherback Tur­tles, high­light­ed the sever­i­ty of the cri­sis. In re­sponse, Dr Car­ol James, then head of Wildlife in the Forestry Di­vi­sion, be­gan en­gag­ing the com­mu­ni­ty with town hall dis­cus­sions to ad­dress the en­vi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter un­fold­ing on their shores.

Ini­tial­ly, Lakhan-Bap­tiste, like many in her com­mu­ni­ty, re­sist­ed gov­ern­ment re­stric­tions on beach ac­cess and poach­ing. But un­der Dr James’s men­tor­ship, she be­gan to see the broad­er en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pli­ca­tions. She de­cid­ed to vol­un­teer with the Forestry Di­vi­sion, pa­trolling Matu­ra Beach at night—of­ten alone or in small groups, on foot, with­out pay, and at con­sid­er­able per­son­al risk. She walked miles in dark­ness, con­front­ed poach­ers—some­times even phys­i­cal­ly—and metic­u­lous­ly record­ed tur­tle sight­ings and il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties, sub­mit­ting de­tailed re­ports to the Di­vi­sion.

It was dur­ing this pe­ri­od that the com­mu­ni­ty or­ga­ni­za­tion Na­ture Seek­ers was born.

Lakhan-Bap­tiste, a found­ing mem­ber and now Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, re­calls: “Peo­ple thought we were crazy. They called me ‘tur­tle po­lice’ or laughed and said I was do­ing favours for the gov­ern­ment. No­body could see that eco­tourism was a tool for con­ser­va­tion and that Matu­ra could be­come an in­come gen­er­a­tor, pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able liveli­hoods for res­i­dents.”

When the gov­ern­ment re­strict­ed beach ac­cess to per­mit hold­ers, her vi­sion be­gan to take shape. Vis­i­tors could on­ly en­ter along­side trained, cer­ti­fied com­mu­ni­ty guides. The pay was mod­est—just $5—but Lakhan-Bap­tiste and her fel­low guides jug­gled day jobs while spend­ing nights tag­ging tur­tles and col­lect­ing vi­tal da­ta.

In 1993, her ded­i­ca­tion earned in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion: she re­ceived the Glob­al 500 Award and trav­elled to Chi­na to ac­cept the ac­co­lade. What some had dis­missed as her “tur­tle crazy” pas­sion was now ac­knowl­edged as glob­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant.

Over the fol­low­ing years, she honed her skills in grant writ­ing, lead­er­ship, and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. By 2008, Na­ture Seek­ers had se­cured a Unit­ed Na­tions grant to ex­pand tur­tle tag­ging and mon­i­tor­ing. Lakhan-Bap­tiste even set a record, tag­ging 35 tur­tles in a sin­gle night.

Sup­port for the or­ga­ni­za­tion con­tin­ued to grow. In­ter­na­tion­al donors, in­clud­ing Cana­di­an phil­an­thropist Dax Dasil­va through Age of Union, con­tributed US$1.5 mil­lion to en­hance their con­ser­va­tion work, en­abling the use of drones, ero­sion sen­sors, and for­est mon­i­tor­ing. Gov­ern­ment sup­port through the Green Fund helped Na­ture Seek­ers launch re­for­esta­tion pro­grams, cre­at­ing jobs while pro­tect­ing ecosys­tems.

Lakhan-Bap­tiste’s im­pact ex­tend­ed far be­yond Matu­ra. She trained com­mu­ni­ties across the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca, in­clud­ing Do­mini­ca, Saint Lu­cia, An­tigua, and be­yond, teach­ing con­ser­va­tion tech­niques and strate­gies to curb tur­tle poach­ing.

She was fea­tured on CNN and in­vit­ed to meet for­mer US First La­dy Hillary Clin­ton as part of a glob­al al­liance of fe­male con­ser­va­tion lead­ers. Back home, she pi­o­neered cre­ative ini­tia­tives like “Trash in­to Cash,” trans­form­ing beach glass in­to jew­el­ry to em­pow­er sin­gle moth­ers while pro­mot­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship.

She has re­cent­ly been award­ed the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Fo­rum of Trinidad and To­ba­go (IWFTT) In­spi­ra­tional Ad­vo­cate Award for her 30 years plus of de­vo­tion to the com­mu­ni­ty of Matu­ra.

Her in­flu­ence trans­formed lives in her com­mu­ni­ty. A for­mer poach­er has be­come an am­bas­sador for the pro­tec­tion of flo­ra and fau­na. Lakhan-Bap­tiste de­scribes it as a shift “from a grave­yard to a ma­ter­ni­ty ward,” with hun­dreds of fe­male tur­tles now nest­ing night­ly.

Matu­ra, once over­looked, has be­come a thriv­ing hub of eco­tourism, at­tract­ing more than 10,000 vis­i­tors an­nu­al­ly. To­day, Na­ture Seek­ers em­ploys 93 staff mem­bers, half of them women rangers who mon­i­tor, tag, and ed­u­cate vis­i­tors on tur­tle con­ser­va­tion.

Suzan Lakhan-Bap­tiste’s 35-year jour­ney ex­em­pli­fies vi­sion, re­silience, and the pow­er of grass­roots ac­tion. From a young girl nav­i­gat­ing hard­ship in a re­mote com­mu­ni­ty to a glob­al con­ser­va­tion leader, her sto­ry demon­strates how one de­ter­mined in­di­vid­ual can in­spire a com­mu­ni­ty—and a na­tion—to pro­tect its nat­ur­al her­itage and the de­fense­less crea­tures that de­pend on it.