Solomon Islands, a country with one of the world’s most extensive shorelines, has taken a step towards conserving the nesting beaches and protection of Pacific leatherback sea turtles.
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) office in Honiara, with the support from their main branch in United Kingdom is the main driver of the turtle conservation work.
“Across the world, turtle species are already endangered and in Solomon Islands, we want to focus on Isabel Province since it was one of the main nesting sites for the Leatherback turtles including other species not only in Solomon Islands but also in the Pacific region.
“This was known following assessment done in the past by National Oceania and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a US based organization that deals with different species such as the Leatherback,” TNC Country Director Willie Atu said.
He said in Isabel, they have four active sites but only two of them engaged with the conservation activities until this month where the other two have formally signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to be part of the conservation. The two sites include Sasakolo and Lithogahira.
“Sasakolo nesting beach was the first to carryout conservation and monitoring work way back in 1992 but it was halted in 2012 following a land dispute whilst Lithogahira is a new comer in the project,” he said.
Isabel Paramount Chief, Bishop James Philip Mason who is one of the hardworking persons supporting the idea to conserve the Lithogahira nesting beach said he is very happy to be part of the initiative and would continue to support the project.
“I can still remember when I was attending primary school in Lithogahira during 1940’s where we used to eat those leatherback turtles, but now we have learned the importance of conserving them given their less appearance on our beaches compared to the past.
“Since they are now regarded as endangered species, their survival depends on our attitude towards them and so it is time we together to help protect and allow their population to grow as far as they can,” he said.
Isabel Provincial Premier Leslie Kikolo said the province also fully supports anything to do with conservation but just that customary land issues have to be sorted out by responsible authorities.
“Our province is so honored and privileged to host such projects given we are the only province those leatherback turtles love to nest on and we want to be a role model to other provinces when it comes to conservation of such endangered species.
“I hope that the conservation programs will continue and more Leatherback turtles will come to our shores so that in future we can provide more nesting sites for the turtles,” Premier Kikolo said.
TNC Marine Conservation Scientist Simon Peter Vuto said they also have the satellite tracking journey of those stocked species that fed as far as north California, USA and yet make their treacherous migration thousands of miles just to nest in Isabel islands.
Mr.Vuto said the critically endangered Western Pacific leatherback sea turtles embark on an annual migration of over 6,000 miles each year to feed on dense aggregations of their favorite food, jellyfish.
“As the largest of all sea turtles, Leatherbacks have experienced a catastrophic 95% decline in their Pacific nesting populations over the last several decades due to constant threats of entanglement in commercial fishing gear, poaching of turtles and turtle eggs from nesting beaches, ingestion of plastics and pollutants, and habitat loss on tropical nesting beaches.
“Past scientific assessments already compliment local knowledge which had shown Isabel Province to host some of the most active nesting beaches for leatherback turtles in the Solomon Islands.
“Records also shows those leatherback turtles after their eggs are hatched and released out to sea they migrate to other parts of the ocean, but they return as they get mature to lay their eggs on the same beach where they were born.”
TNC Isabel Coordinator, John Pita said for Sasakolo as one of the active nesting beaches for the leatherback turtles, it took around 11 years to carry out the conservation.
“Sasakolo has recorded a total of 227 nests in 6 seasons from 1993-2009 until in 2012 when it was halted due to land issues.
“After Sasakolo, we have Sosoilo where we recorded 77 nests from the 4 seasons beginning from 2015- 2019 and later on Haevo where we have recorded 316 nests for the 7 seasons starting from 2013 -2019.”
He said the TNC is yet to get the updated data of the figure for the recent years from each conservation sites but from the recent monitoring findings, it shows an increase of the number of nesting sites especially on the already established conservation sites such as Haevo and Sosoilo.
Source and quoting an extract from a report in today’s Solomon Star newspaper.
Comment.
A great conservation achievement in Isabel Province and congratulations to all concerned in protecting the endangered Leatherback turtles.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
