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LOCAL Wednesday 22 March 2023
Sea turtle conservation by Turtugaruba Foundation

ORANJESTAD ― Turtuga-
ruba was founded on
September 3rd,2003 by a
group of enthusiastic vol-
unteers. Ten years earlier, in
1993, a Sea Turtle Recovery
Action Plan (STRAP) was in-
troduced in Aruba and the
rest of the Caribbean as an
initiative of the United Na-
tions Environment Program
(UNEP). Tom Barmes, who
was working at DLVV (Dep-
tartment of Agriculture,
Husbandry and Fishery)
was one of the writers of the
STRAP for Aruba, together
with Karen Eckert, director
of WIDECAST (Wider Carib-
bean Sea Turtle Conserva-
tion Network). This is how
sea turtle conservation
started on the island follow-
ing a plan that is still com-
plied with today.

Tom formed a group of has been conducted in tember) volunteers, the sea turtles for their survival. It is clear
volunteers around him, which every early morning • Hawksbill Sea Turtle - are still here. On Aruba the that even more coastal de-
because nature does not the beach was being mon- Karetschildpad - Caret sea turtles are threatened velopment would not make
know office hours, like an itored in which now there (June – December) with extinction by pollu- the situation better for the
organization such as DLVV. is a good overview of sea • Green Turtle - Soepschil- tion, driving on dunes and sea turtles. Again, more ho-
This group of volunteers turtle nesting activities. dpad - Turtuga Blanco beaches with quads and tel rooms? And even busier
used the name Widecast (July-November) 4x4’s and the loss of nesting beaches? These are choic-
Aruba and today there are There are 4 different sea beaches due to coastal es Aruba has to make. Do
still a few of them active. turtle species that visit Aru- There also came a better development on behalf of we want to leave a place
They first started protecting ba to lay their eggs, each understanding and over- tourism. Because coastal for the sea turtles? Not only
the Leatherback Sea Turtle with their own specific sea- view of the biggest threats development comes with Aruba, but the entire world
nests on Palm Beach and son: to the sea turtles existence artificial light and artificial needs sea turtles! Sea tur-
Eagle Beach. This group • Leatherback Sea Tur- in Aruba and how these light is a mayor issue for sea tles play a vital role in keep-
also investigated which tle - Lederschildpad problems should be tack- turtles, mother turtle usually ing our oceans healthy.
other species of sea turtles - Driekiel (March – Sep- led. Despite hard work, all comes on shore at night
use Aruba as their nesting tember) those years, most problems looking for a dark beach to The Green Turtle, for ex-
habitat and which beach- • Loggerhead Sea Turtle have not really gone away, make her nest. However… ample, keeps the sea
es are used by them. For a - Dikkopschildpad - but luckily and thanks to the a dark beach is hard to grasses on the bottom of
period of 25 years a study Cawama (May – Sep- enormous efforts from the find here nowadays. Light the sea short and therefore
causes stress and can result a healthy place for many
in her returning to the sea fish to deposit their eggs.
without laying her eggs. The Leatherback, the larg-
Artificial light causes disori- est turtle of the world, eats
entation for the baby sea mainly jellyfish and helps
turtles (hatchlings). maintain the balance be-
tween jellyfish and plank-
They crawl towards artificial ton. Despite the threats
light sources (like street- that exist on Aruba, the tur-
lights, hotel lights, etc.) tles still keep coming. That’s
and then they don’t find why today Turtugaruba is
the sea. In the 90’s it was especially proud of the vol-
still a common occurrence unteers and the many peo-
to find a complete nest of ple and organizations of
about 70 hatchlings on the our community that carry a
streets, dead, as cars drove warm place in their hearts
over them. Thanks to their for the sea turtles. All four
protection methods and a species are active now,
lot of time and effort, the which means all hands
volunteers of Turtugaruba on deck in the field for us,
have managed to get this the volunteers. We strive
under control. But for a sus- to keep the sea turtles, our
tainable solution there must oldest ‘repeat guests’, al-
be less light visible on the ways coming back to Aru-
beaches and a strict regu- ba and get the chance to
lation of it. Sea turtles simply reproduce here.q
need dark nesting beaches