Students' Sea Turtle Conservation Network » Media

NDTV Coverage of Casuarina on Turtle-Nesting Beaches

sstcnchennai — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:20:39 +0000

Sam Daniel of NDTV spoke to renowned filmmaker Shekar Dattatri and SSTCN coordinator V. Arun about the impact of extensive casuarina plantations on our Tamil Nadu beaches, where turtles have been nesting for thousands of years. The aired segment can be viewed from the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjyM9lAwmhU

Turtles in the Night

sstcnchennai — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:45:02 +0000

The following article on our turtle walks was published in an issue of Young World on April 4, 2008.

It was written by Ashish Kothari, head of Kalpavriksh Environmental Action Group which is a non profit organization that works on environmental education, research, campaigns, and direct action. The organization is based in Delhi and Pune, and is currently working to prevent the construction of the Dhamra Port in Orissa, as if built, the port would completely destroy the turtle nesting beaches of Orissa.

To view the article, click on the following link:

http://www.hindu.com/yw/2008/04/04/stories/2008040450520200.htm

Saving the Olive Ridley – The Hindu

oliveridley — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 05:58:42 +0000

The threat to the Olive Ridley in Chennai is prominently featured in today’s Hindu Editorial.

Endangered sea turtles such as the Olive Ridley have inspired campaigns to save the seas, sandy beaches, and dunes. To save turtles is to save an entire ecosystem. But this protected mascot species faces a rising threat from avoidable coastal development, the planting of exotic trees, and the illumination of beachfront dwellings. The building of coastal structures, including groynes and walls, blocks off access and exacerbates erosion; the planting of casuarina trees preve nts nesting; and lights along the coast confuse turtle hatchlings, fatally attracting them inland. Unless these threats are addressed quickly and scientifically, the Olive Ridley may lose its nesting habitats in the Indian subcontinent and suffer a sharp decline. For many years now, Olive Ridley deaths traceable to human interference have been high. Despite high levels of awareness, recent reports speak of a continuing tragedy. Indian Institute of Science ecologists fear that about 10,000 turtles die annually in Orissa, where they nest en masse. Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh provide low or medium density habitats but they are vital to the health of the species.

The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : Saving the Olive Ridley

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Tags: OliveRidley, Chennai, SSTCN

100s of turtles die in Andhra Pradesh

oliveridley — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:26:11 +0000

I have written about turtle excluder devices (TEDs) and how they save adult turtles lives previously. So, this story is an utterly avoidable tragedy brought about by the lack of implementation of laws regulating the use of TEDs.

The death of hundreds of Olive Ridley turtles along the Paravada coast in December 2007 had occurred due to failure of the trawlers to install the mandatory turtle excluder device. Lab tests conducted at Andhra University and Veterinary Biological Research Institute, Hyderabad ruled out the largescale death of the endangered species due to consumption of toxic contents discharged by industries located nearby or on account of rise in the seawater temperature.“We didn’t find any abnormal pollution levels. The washing ashore of carcasses was not a localised phenomena as dead turtles were found all along the coast up to Srikakulam during the year-end – the breeding season,” P.J. Vijaykar, Divisional Forest Officer told The Hindu on Wednesday.

The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Visakhapatnam News : Olive Ridley death riddle solved

Andhra Pradesh was supposed to be a success story with the TEDs. This from an article by Kartik Shanker, one of SSTCN’s founding members…

In India, the parallel cases of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh demonstrate how a TED programme should not (and should) be implemented. In Orissa, the polarization between the fishing community and conservationists has prevented the introduction of TEDs, while in Andhra Pradesh, TEDs were introduced by the state Fisheries Department with appropriate demonstration and training programmes (see Shanker and Pilcher, 2003).

So, this occurrence in Andhra Pradesh is quite disheartening and speaks to the large gaps that lie between legislation, policy and implementation in India.

Cross Posted at The Olive Ridley Crawl

Tags: OliveRidley, Sea Turtles, SSTCN