Turtle Action Group Seychelles
Jeanne, known as Madame Torti in the Seychelles, is a turtle conservation legend. Turtle Action Group Seychelles provides a forum where she and other turtle researchers in the Seychelles can communicate and collaborate.
Jeanne A. Mortimer
Ever since I was a little girl I knew I wanted to be a scientist – but I didn’t know what kind. What I did know was that I loved animals, especially ‘cold’ animals – reptiles, amphibians and insects – and that I loved the outdoors. I grew up in the big city of Chicago in the USA, but from the age of six to 20 I spent all my summers at my family’s fishing lodge in the lakes region of north-western Ontario in Canada. There I worked as a waitress, a fishing guide and a house painter and in...
Turtle Action Group of Seychelles (TAGS): group revival and website production
To revive and improve the structure of TAGS as a forum for communication and information sharing amongst individuals and organizations working in Seychelles on sea turtle biology and conservation, ensure standardization of methods and approaches, and disseminate information within and beyond Seychelles to benefit sea turtle conservation.
Revival of the TAGS group and production of a TAGS website will provide the critical first step to making it possible to leverage the funding needed to carry out the other long-term goals of the TAGS group: promoting the conser
Sea turtles have been an important resource to the human inhabitants of Seychelles ever since the islands were first discovered in 1609. Utilisation eventually led to over-exploitation, as turtles were killed primarily to supply the export market. By the mid-1980s the breeding populations of both green and hawksbill turtles had dropped to dangerously low levels in Seychelles and elsewhere. In 1994, after experimenting with closed seasons, quotas, and protection of females only, the Seychelles passed legislation banning the killing of all turtles and trade in their products. Turtle monitoring programs were implemented, starting in the early 1970s, throughout the country and proved to be a highly effective conservation tool.
Today there are almost 20 such programmes operating in the Seychelles. Essentially the same monitoring protocols have been employed at all sites, which makes the data collected comparable for scientific analysis. The highly migratory sea turtles are a resource shared between islands in Seychelles. Individual turtles are known to move between nesting and feeding habitats at more than one island, and even to nest on multiple islands. So there is a need for the various turtle monitoring projects to coordinate their efforts and share information.
Live sea turtles are now being utilised at many sites in Seychelles as a tourist attraction and where they have been protected their numbers are increasing. The turtle conservation programmes in Seychelles can serve as a model for other countries. There is a critical need to publicise this conservation success, and for data collected over so many decades to be shared and analyzed, and the results disseminated both nationally and internationally. Efforts to consolidate national turtle programmes resulted in the formation of TAGS in 2008, however due to a lack of stakeholder capacity and funding, the effectiveness was limited.
The aims and objectives of this project are to:
- Revive and improve structure of dormant TAGS by reviewing articles of association and data-sharing memorandums of understanding, and electing officers.
- Improve current TAGS logo.
- Reach agreement among TAGS members about new projects.
- Produce TAGS website.
- Market website once it is launched.