Sea turtles have been swimming the world’s oceans and nesting on its beaches for over 120 million years. They even survived mass extinction events, including the one that saw the end of the large dinosaurs.
Throughout human history sea turtles have played key roles in the culture and diet of coastal populations around the world. But in modern times, over-exploitation of sea turtle meat, eggs, cartilage, oil, and body parts, caused population declines and even local extinctions. They also face threats from plastic ingestion and climate change.
Among the seven species of sea turtles, the green turtle was historically the most exploited for human consumption. Green turtles are a key element of West Africa’s biodiversity heritage and contribute to the health of coastal marine ecosystems in the region. But protecting them is difficult, in part because they perform some of the longest migrations known in the animal kingdom.
These grand movements pose a major conservation challenge: how do we protect animals that cross international borders and can therefore experience varying levels of protection and human-caused threats?
We conducted research around the small island of Poilão off the coast of Guinea-Bissau. The island is part of the Bijagós archipelago which hosts one of the largest green turtle populations in the world. The core nesting site for this population is Poilão island where around 25,000 turtles make their nests annually.
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