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Sunday, February 16, 2025

Nature seekers get new lease on turtle conservation with US$1.5M donation

by

883 days ago
20220916

A US$ 1.5 mil­lion do­na­tion to Na­ture Seek­ers, a non-prof­it, com­mu­ni­ty-based na­ture con­ser­va­tion or­gan­i­sa­tion in Matu­ra, Trinidad, has giv­en the group sta­ble fund­ing for the next five years, just months af­ter the con­ser­va­tion group near­ly de­clared in­sol­ven­cy.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Na­ture Seek­ers man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Suzan Lakhan-Bap­tiste said this gift could not have come at a bet­ter time.

“This gift from the Age of Union (Al­liance) is very much more sig­nif­i­cant than one could ever imag­ine. Be­fore COVID-19, Na­ture Seek­ers was al­most erad­i­cat­ed. The on­ly rev­enue that Na­ture Seek­ers de­rive is from our guid­ed tours. When the Min­istry of Health an­nounced no more beach, no more ac­tiv­i­ties with wa­ter or any­thing like that, that put a nail in our cof­fin, no way of even gen­er­at­ing any in­come,” she said

The Age of Union Al­liance is a non-prof­it en­vi­ron­men­tal al­liance that sup­ports high-im­pact projects ad­dress­ing cur­rent and ur­gent con­ser­va­tion chal­lenges. It was found­ed by Cana­di­an tech leader and en­vi­ron­men­tal ac­tivist Dax Dasil­va in Oc­to­ber last year, with an ini­tial fund of US$40 mil­lion.

Dasil­va took an in­ter­est in T&T’s Leatherback tur­tles and Na­ture Seek­ers on a vis­it to the coun­try ear­li­er this year.

Dasil­va re­count­ed his vis­it, “When I first saw the Leatherback tur­tle moth­ers, just a few months ago when we came, I felt like I was wit­ness­ing a di­nosaur, and it’s tru­ly spe­cial.”

He added, “I think we just fell in love with the nat­ur­al set­ting in Trinidad and what we were see­ing be­ing done on the ground that’s been so ef­fec­tive.”

With all the is­sues af­fect­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, it still begs the ques­tion–why Leatherback tur­tles?

Dasil­va stat­ed, “Tur­tles, es­pe­cial­ly Leatherback tur­tles, are a key­stone species. They in­di­cate the health of the over­all ecosys­tem. If the Leatherback tur­tle is do­ing well, then we know that the ecosys­tem at large, all the small­er an­i­mals, all the small­er fish, all the plant life are al­so po­ten­tial­ly thriv­ing.”

Over the last three decades, Na­ture Seek­ers’ pri­ma­ry fo­cus has been con­serv­ing and pro­tect­ing sea tur­tles that nest in the re­gion, in­clud­ing the Leatherback tur­tle.

An­nu­al­ly, the group en­gages in sea tur­tle mon­i­tor­ing, pro­tec­tion and da­ta col­lec­tion along the 8.8-kilo­me­tre-long Matu­ra beach dur­ing the tur­tle nest­ing sea­son that spans from March 1 to Au­gust 3.

Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, the Matu­ra beach can host 200-plus tur­tles per night in the peak sea­son and is re­gard­ed as one of the last re­main­ing strong­holds for the species in the world.

How­ev­er, with cli­mate change and sea-lev­el rise al­ter­ing Trinidad’s coast­lines, com­bined with the ma­jor in­flux of sar­gas­sum sea­weed, changes in land use and drainage, ris­ing ocean tem­per­a­tures lead­ing to food chains al­ter­ations, and the in­tro­duc­tion of more de­struc­tive fish­ing prac­tices, Na­ture Seek­ers’ im­por­tance in con­ser­va­tion and da­ta col­lec­tion can­not be un­der­scored enough.

The non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion in­tends to use the do­na­tion for projects that span the next five years, with fund­ing re­leased from the Age of Union Al­liance every three months.

Lakhan-Bap­tiste said they’ll be util­is­ing their funds to sup­port ex­ist­ing projects while kick­ing off new en­deav­ours.

She said, “The mon­ey will be used for this mon­i­tor­ing of this beau­ti­ful 8.8 kilo­me­tre of beach, and we have to have a lot of hu­man re­sources to be able to col­lect the da­ta.”

Lakhan-Bap­tiste al­so not­ed that da­ta col­lec­tion is at the fore­front of their projects to present da­ta in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Na­ture Seek­ers will mea­sure the tur­tle pop­u­la­tion’s size, tag the species to un­der­stand mi­gra­to­ry routes, and even the chang­ing weights of nest­ing tur­tles dur­ing their eight to ten-day stay in T&T’s wa­ters.

With changes in land use in the Matu­ra area and heav­ier rain­fall in short­er pe­ri­ods, which has been linked to cli­mate change, more fresh­wa­ter has been fun­nelling in­to Matu­ra Beach, wash­ing away tur­tle nests. As such, Na­ture Seek­ers will ex­pand their hatch­ery box­es and nest re­lo­ca­tion projects us­ing the Age of Union Al­liance do­na­tion, which may in­crease hatch­ling sur­vival rates.


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