Red Data Book

4.4 Develop public education

In order to create among people an awareness of the biology and endangered status of sea turtles, it is a recommendation of this Recovery Action Plan that a national education programme be implemented. Various media should be used to achieve maximum results. Ongoing and anticipated initiatives are discussed below.

4.41 Residents

Laws designed to protect sea turtles in St. Lucia are widely ignored, fueling an entirely unacceptable level of exploitation of all species and their eggs. It is an urgent recommendation of this Recovery Action Plan that efforts to educate the national citizenry be a top priority. Since 1983, the Department of Fisheries has implemented an outreach programme consisting primarily of slide presentations, lectures, and the distribution of printed matter. The Department is hoping to step up its activities to include public schools and some of the more isolated fishing communities.

The SLNS has also been very involved in public education efforts, providing slide shows, media articles, and highlighting sea turtle conservation activities in their newsletter, News and Views. Time and resources permitting, the SLNS should become even more involved in making presentations to schools, since the children are the future resource users and managers. Civic and youth groups will be encouraged to join the SLNS in incorporating conservation messages, and especially information about endangered species such as sea turtles, in their community outreach activities.
We hope that video documentaries will become available in the near future and we fully support the efforts of WIDECAST to produce a video for use throughout the region. Ideally, coastal residents should be encouraged to become involved in monitoring nesting habitat and protecting sea turtles, eggs, and hatchlings. The assistance of WIDECAST has been solicited in the design, printing, and distribution of a brochure and posters on the subject of sea turtle conservation.

4.42 Fishermen

There is a need for specific extension work on the subject of sea turtle conservation. We recommend that informal Town Meetings be planned in key communities to focus on the subject of sea turtle biology and the need for an indefinite moratorium on the harvest of turtles and their eggs. In this way, fishermen would learn why late-maturing, long-lived species such as turtles must be managed very differently from the way most fishes are managed, they would have an opportunity to see that the Government is serious about the protection of sea turtles, and they would have a chance to discuss ways in which the transition to a zero quota could be eased. It is a recommendation of this Recovery Action Plan that all efforts be made using Extension personnel of the Department of Fisheries to inform fishermen about the plight of sea turtles, to discourage fishermen from breaching regulations, and to encourage reporting of violations. Fishermen should be invited to participate in surveys and to provide relevant information (i.e., turtle sightings) to the Department.

The following points should be emphasised to turtle fishermen and their colleagues:

1. 
   Sea turtles are long-lived, reaching sexual maturity in 20-35 years.
   
2. 
   Mortality is high in young juveniles, but very low for fully armoured large juveniles and adults.
   
3. 
   Adult females average five clutches of eggs per year and nest every 2-5 years; under natural conditions females live for many years and lay thousands of eggs to ensure population stability.
   
4. 
   Unfortunately, large turtles have historically been targeted because they provide the most meat; Fisheries laws usually protect only small turtles.
   
5. 
   Egg-bearing adult females are taken in disproportionate numbers because they are easily obtained from the nesting beach.
   
6. 
   Over-harvesting large turtles, especially gravid females, is a sure way to invite population collapse (this has been observed at rookeries throughout the world and is easily shown mathematically).
   
7. 
   Sea turtle populations cannot sustain the persistent harvest of large juvenile and adult animals.
   
8. 
   Nesting populations have been greatly reduced or exterminated all over the Caribbean, including St. Lucia, because adults are not surviving long enough to produce the next generation (the widespread harvest of eggs only exacerbates this problem).
   
9. 
   The fact that nesting populations are crashing but juvenile turtles are still seen in local waters is not surprising -the two stocks are unrelated.
   
10. 
    Juveniles travel widely during the many years prior to maturity -local juveniles are not residents, they are a shared regional resource.
    
11. 
    Nesting females, which return to St. Lucia at regular intervals to lay their eggs on beaches where they were born many years ago, leave St. Lucia at the end of the nesting season and return to resident feeding areas which are most likely located in distant countries.
    
12. 
    All nations must work together if this shared and endangered natural resource is to survive.
    

4.43 Tourists

It is a recommendation of this Recovery Action Plan that the Department of Fisheries, as part of its ongoing education programme, make brochures concerning the marine environment in general and the endangered status of sea turtles in particular available at hotels and ports of entry. Colourful posters should be placed in strategic locations. Hotels have already been provided with notices to solicit information from visitors and hotel staff regarding any turtle sightings. In the past, tourists have accompanied members of the Department of Fisheries and the SLNS on "turtle watches" after paying a fee. This has proven to be a useful and educational exercise and we recommend that it be resumed in the future if beaches can be located where sufficient turtles are still nesting to warrant the exercise.

4.44 Non-consumptive use of sea turtles to generate revenue

At one time it would have been possible to design a programme where tourists paid local guides to lead them to the Grande Anse nesting beach to witness the leatherback turtles. This has been a significant source of community income in other areas (e.g., Trinidad) and has proven an excellent lure for guests at selected hotels that sponsor sea turtle conservation programmes on their beaches (e.g., Long Island, Antigua). However, field surveys conducted by the SLNS since 1991 indicate that virtually every female coming ashore to nest on Grande Anse has been killed. This lawless behaviour on the part of a small band of poachers has effectively eliminated the opportunity for local villages to capitalize on sea turtle eco-tourism. It is unlikely that there are other beaches in St. Lucia where eco-tourism is possible, but in the event that such initiatives are undertaken, it is vital that a trained Guide or Warden supervise the beach walks and that appropriate beach etiquette be maintained (e.g., no flash pictures of nesting females). WIDECAST is currently designing a techniques manual for use in designing sea turtle eco-tour-ism ventures.