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Are Conservation Projects Worth their Weight in Carbon?
If you are spending your gap year volunteering around the world, your carbon footprint might be overshadowing your hard work
Chloe Raikes
Are Conservation Projects Worth their Weight in Carbon?: Text
It is 2am on a sticky June night. I am hiding behind a sand dune hoping she will not see me. The moonlight is just bright enough to make out her shape. I quickly flick on my red headlight as she starts crawling back towards the sea. Her breathing is laboured, drowning out the sound of the waves.
Turtles must be permanently exhausted. Two hours spent digging holes in the sand and none were up to scratch to house her precious cargo. She will be back, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. For now, she disappears into the ocean. I scribble the time onto my data sheet and start the next bay walk.
Around 100 volunteers from across the world travel to North Cyprus during the summer to help protect Mediterranean green and loggerhead turtles. The Marine Turtle Conservation Project (MTCP) is a collaboration between the Society for the Protection of Turtles (SPOT) in Cyprus, the Marine Turtle Research Group at the University of Exeter and the North Cyprus Department of Environmental Protection. Their aim is to restore turtle populations by monitoring nests and by using research to influence environmental policy changes. But with so many volunteers flying to Cyprus every year, can conservation really be worth the carbon footprint?
Are Conservation Projects Worth their Weight in Carbon?: Text
Are Conservation Projects Worth their Weight in Carbon?: Image
Bycatch and Marine Protected Areas
In the Mediterranean, 132,000 turtles are caught in fishing equipment every year, of which, around 44,000 die. The greatest threat is from artisanal fisheries as they work in areas where these turtles mate and feed during summer. Unfortunately, bycatch, boat strikes and pollution are commonplace in the Mediterranean. If these areas were protected, turtle populations could recover.
SPOT works with local fishers, both on and off the boats, to collect GPS locations and tags for the turtles that are accidently caught. This data is used to map out areas that experience high and consistent levels of bycatch. “We are working on establishing Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and managing fisheries,” says Dr Robin Snape, Research Fellow at the University of Exeter and Board Member at SPOT. “Each year we publish a report which includes a series of recommendations to the North Cyprus Ministry for Tourism and Environment and the North Cyprus Ministry for Agriculture and Natural Resources.” Their work has already led to the designation of five Natura 2000 specially protected areas which cover 25% of the North Cyprus coastline.
Filling in the Gaps
“The work carried out in Cyprus has been very influential in generating an understanding of marine turtle ecology for the Mediterranean and across the world,” says Brendan Godley, Professor of Conservation Science and Marine Strategy Lead for the University of Exeter. “Over time the Northern Cyprus populations have become amongst the best studied in the world.” In the late 1990s SPOT deployed over 60 satellite transmitters to locate turtle migration routes post-nesting season. Locating turtles and their migration routes is crucial for effective MPAs. Unfortunately, there is still little known about turtle activity between their birth and their first nesting season, 15-30 years later.
How climate change will impact marine turtles is also uncertain as the sex of hatchlings is determined by nest incubation temperatures. Temperature loggers are placed into nests during night work to estimate annual birth ratios of males to females. If global temperatures continue to rise, hatchlings will either be predominantly female, or temperatures will prove fatal during incubation, putting the long-term future of these species at risk. Without understanding what is happening, counter measures cannot be implemented.
Are Conservation Projects Worth their Weight in Carbon?: Text
Are Conservation Projects Worth their Weight in Carbon?: Image
The Caveat
Flying around the world volunteering on international conservation projects does nothing for your carbon footprint. A London to North Cyprus return flight produces 1 tonCO2e (1 ton of total greenhouse gas emissions expressed as CO2). Considering that there are 56 countries in which the average person emits less than this per year, it is a staggering amount of greenhouse gas! In order to monitor the beaches and collect the data, the project requires lots of volunteers. Fortunately, some do not need to travel far. “Of our 100 annual volunteers about 30 are Turkish Cypriot,” says Snape. “That is much better than ten years ago, and we will follow that trajectory.”
The biggest problem? “There is no pure biological science department at any North Cyprus university, no Zoology, Environmental Biology, [or] Conservation Biology courses,” says Snape. In the UK, conservation experience is considered a prerequisite to pursue a career in these fields. SPOT is currently organising trips to local schools to talk about the project with hopes of recruiting more Cypriot volunteers.
Turtles, Turtles and More Turtles
Conservation efforts have paid off. “The populations of green turtles have now very much begun to increase,” says Godley. “For loggerheads, although the numbers are stable, there has yet been any increase.” Since monitoring began in 1992, the annual number of greens nesting on Alagadi beaches have increased from just under 20 to an average of 74 females, whilst loggerheads remain at around 35. With these two species usually laying around 3 nests per season, greens laying an average of 115 eggs and loggerheads an average of 70 eggs, that is a significant rise in the number of potential hatchlings.
Unfortunately, only 1 in 1000 hatchlings are estimated to survive to adulthood. Monitoring by the volunteers helps protect each nest from predation, trampling and being washed away, giving as many hatchlings as possible the chance to reach the sea. Without all 100 volunteers the workload would not be manageable.
“What is harder to appreciate, however, is the positive impact that the project has had on more than 1000 volunteers who have had hands on training research, conservation, environmental education and intense personal development or the tens of thousands of visitors (Cypriot and Tourists) who have experienced the wonder of close interaction with marine turtle adults and hatchlings,” says Godley. If the project has enabled volunteers to start a career in a related field than it stands to reason that perhaps marine turtles are not the only species benefitting from this project.
Assuming that global conservation projects continue to safeguard species and their ecosystems, influence environmental policy, aid future environmental careers and limit their carbon footprint where possible, then the restoration of global ecosystems must thwart claims that travelling hundreds of miles compromises conservation success.
Are Conservation Projects Worth their Weight in Carbon?: Text
Are Conservation Projects Worth their Weight in Carbon?: Image
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