Development & Aid, Environment, Tierramerica

Amazon Turtle Quest

SANTARÉM, Brazil, Mar 2 2009 (IPS) - Two reporters embark on an expedition across Lago Verde, in eastern Amazonia, to observe how scientists and local fishing people join efforts to study and protect the area’s turtles.

Looking back, Mario Maranhão concludes that being a conservationist was always in his nature. When he had to hunt for a living, he “only killed enough to eat, and never went after the female animals,” he says. Five years ago, he took on the mission of rescuing turtles that hatch near Alter do Chão, an earthly paradise located in eastern Amazonia.

But it was only after linking up with academic researchers, that this 52-year-old Brazilian tour guide’s environmental work became systematic.

Over the last three years he has been combing the surrounding beaches night after night, from late September through early December, in search of nests containing the freshly-laid eggs of chelonians – a group of animals that are more commonly known by the name of one of their species: turtles.

Tracajás or yellow-spotted Amazon river turtles (Podocnemis unifilis) usually lay their eggs in the evening, between 6 and 10 pm, and pitiús or six-tubercled Amazon river turtles (Podocnemis sextuberculata) lay them later at night, between 1 and 4 am. Their nesting habits have forced Maranhão to spend long, solitary nights on the beach, and almost cost him his marriage.

The nest watch ends almost two months later, when the eggs hatch. Maranhão then takes the hatchlings home to care for them for another two months before releasing them on the beautiful beaches of the Lago Verde lagoon, which are a great tourist attraction, drawing many visitors to the small town of Alter do Chão, located in the municipality of Santarém, some 800 kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Amazon river.

All this care is directed at preventing people from eating the eggs and stopping natural predators, such as hawks and fishes, from doing away with the hatchlings. The aim is to restore the population of chelonians, an order of the class Reptilia, which includes turtles and tortoises.

These animals are very prolific. Amazon turtles (Podocnemis expansa), the region’s largest species, can lay more than 100 eggs per nest. But very few hatchlings make it to adulthood, due to heavy predation on the eggs and the young animals before their shells have hardened.

Which is why Juárez Pezzuti, professor at the Federal University of Pará and coordinator of several research studies on Amazonian aquatic fauna, sees management by river populations as a good solution to ensure conservation and growth of chelonian populations. In animals with such high fertility and mortality rates as these, just a small amount of care during reproduction can have a multiplying effect, he says.

A government-led breeding project, which returned tens of millions of baby animals to several Amazon rivers and has protected 115 breeding sites since the 1980s, succeeded in dispelling the threat of extinction that hung over turtles, and in recovering their population and that of other species.

Pezzuti sees community management as a good solution for ecological and social reasons. Brazil banned the hunting or fishing of chelonians back in 1967, along with that of other wild animals.

But the local population still eats these animals’ meat and eggs, in many cases because it is one of their few sources of food. When the larger species, such as tracajás, are in short supply, the population also relies on the smaller species.

Protecting females from being captured as they lay their eggs, for example, eliminates the leading factor in the reduction of certain species. Directing egg collection to nests exposed to flooding, cattle treading or a high concentration of nesting females also favors the abundance of animals, which is also important in meeting the food needs of the local people.

Turtles, which used to be very abundant, played a significant role over the last three hundred years as a source of food in Brazil’s Amazon region. The expansion of the local population and the increasing market value of turtles -as their meat turned into a very expensive delicacy and their oil was used for street lighting- led to overexploitation and endangerment.

Pezzuti, an ethno-ecologist who researched chelonian reproduction in Amazonia for his master’s and doctoral theses, recognizes how valuable the knowledge of the local people is as an input for his studies. Which is why he speaks of joint management and seeks to combine traditional knowledge with academic knowledge.

“Eurocentric” science, he says, tends to ignore popular experience, thus hindering the progress of research and often leading to erroneous results. “My work would not be possible without resorting to the knowledge gathered over centuries by the Amazon peoples,” he admits.

Rachel Leite, another scientist who is working on Lago Verde chelonians for her master’s thesis under Pezzuti’s guidance, also conducts her research with the support of local people like Maranhão and Paulo de Jesus, a boatman and experienced turtle hunter.

In a joint researcher and journalist expedition, de Jesus demonstrated how he contributes to the research work, diving two meters deep in an “igapó” (flooded forest) in Lago Verde and catching five turtles, tracajás and pirangas (Podocnemis erytrhocephala), with his bare hands.

His sharp eye, which allowed him to spot the chelonians where two researchers and a journalist venturing in muddy green waters saw nothing, reveals the skills he developed when he hunted turtles for his livelihood and continues to develop now in his current occupation, catching ornamental fish.

Today he puts his skills at the service of science, which may be why he is reluctant to answer when asked if he would ever eat turtles again.

Leite, who has been studying chelonians throughout Lago Verde since September, identifies, measures and marks the animals they find, and then releases them at the same spot where they caught them. She recalls how at first the task “seemed hopeless; we just couldn’t find any animals.”

But later, the fishermen explained that the animals were “buried in the mud,” due to the ebb tide, when water levels can drop as much as six meters.

Now, with the Tapajós river — which feeds the lake — at flood level, it is easier to spot them: on trees, sunbathing or under water. Leite’s study will estimate the population of the five species found in Lago Verde and their geographical and seasonal distribution. The measurements and the marks on each animal’s shell will enable her to monitor the animals’ growth in subsequent recaptures, the biologist explains.

To study the animals’ reproduction, she relies on Maranhão, another practical expert who can spot nests where few can see any alterations on the sand. In his night rounds he not only finds the nests, he also erases the traces left by the females, so that hunters cannot find their eggs.

Maranhão’s calling has also turned him into an environmental educator, taking children and tourists to see baby turtles hatching. The effectiveness of this experience is evident in Roberto Santos, the boatman that transports the team of researchers and journalist to observe five nests, two of which contain 10 hatchlings that Maranhão takes back to his “crib.”

Santos is “moved” by the sight of the hatchlings and declares that the experience has turned him into a “protector of turtles.” “Seeing them being born has opened my eyes to something I wasn’t aware of,” he says.