Crushed turtles

Bulldozers tore into a leatherback turtle nesting site on a remote beach in Trinidad earlier this week, prompting outrage among environmentalists around the world. The construction effort was intended to redirect the flow of river water, which was eroding an important nesting beach and threatening a local hotel. Witnesses in the tiny town of Grand Riviere said they saw thousands of eggs and hatchlings crushed as the bulldozer rolled over the beach.

Despite repeat calls, Trinidad's Ministry of Works has not commented on the incident.

Trinidad has missed its dry season this year and rain has caused the river to swell. But conservationists say what was intended as a conservation has simply made the situation worse. Environmentalist Sherwin Reyz of the Grand Riviere Environmental Organization said he and other local residents rushed to rescue as many of the tiny hatchlings as they could. He thinks they saved several hundred.

"I don't think anybody in their right mind could have done something like this", Reyz said. "Here you are, tractoring up the sand, you've seen the young turtles and still crush them. There's something wrong with you."

Government neglect

Karen Eckert, the Executive Director of the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network, agrees that the situation is heartbreaking, but said the real problem was the government's continued neglect of rural communities. She says environmentalists in Grand Riviere repeatedly called on the government to redirect the flow, before hatching season began. In an interview with DW, she said a simple dig at another part of the river would have diverted the flow of water, without ever disturbing the eggs.

"The ministry was very delayed in responding and the gentleman who was driving the bulldozer has no information on what he was supposed to be doing," she said. "He ran all over this nesting beach making an absolute mess of it."

Eckert added that the population of leatherback turtles is likely to recover, but called the incident a warning. She pinned the blame on Trinidad's government for neglecting environmental concerns in rural areas.

Recovery expected

Trinidad has passed a law making it illegal to 'take or remove or cause to be removed any turtle eggs after they have been laid and buried by any female turtle.' Anyone caught taking eggs may be fined or even imprisoned.

Eckert said the deaths were tragic but unlikely to have a lasting effect on the local population. She explained that about 3,500 female leatherbacks arrive to lay their eggs, with each one laying five or six clutches of eggs over the course of the breeding season. That's more than 10 thousand nesting events at the site which was bulldozed.

She said the "incident will not significantly affect the reproductive output of the beach, and certainly will not accelerate the global decline of leatherback sea turtles." But she added that "speaks volumes on the age-old challenge of lack of communication and empathy between a central government and its rural communities."

"What was destroyed was the babies. I think that pulls at anybody's heart strings.

Author: Sarah Steffen, Saroja Coelho
Editor: Andreas Illmer