Mark Forbes, Sydney Morning Herald 6 Sep 08;
For years the inhabitants of Turtle Island rode on the back of their home's namesake, those primordial creatures that gracefully traversed the surrounding oceans and lumbered up their beaches to lay eggs.
Living a kilometre off Bali's coast, these struggling fishermen supplemented their diet with turtle meat. In the early 1990s they were lured by tourism's riches with an offer that could not be refused from President Suharto's infamous son, Tommy, to transform Serangan (Turtle) Island into a five-star resort.
With Suharto's fall and the Asian economic crisis the plan collapsed, but not before the construction of a causeway to the mainland, reclamation of beaches and the clearing of almost all vegetation.
Left behind were a desolate moonscape, destroyed fishing grounds and little income except for a handful of rickety cafes feeding surfers who visit when trade winds and tides whip up large swells off the island's reef.
Locals turned to catching turtles in increasing numbers, transforming the island into the centre of Indonesia's poaching trade. In 1999, 30,000 turtles were shipped off the island before new laws protected the endangered species.
But trade continued, despite a rapidly declining turtle population, and prompted a concerted campaign by conservation groups led by WWF.
The Turtle Conservation and Education Centre was established to educate and offer incentives to protect the animals. Eggs are collected and hatched, and baby turtles are released into the ocean, for a $5 fee, by tourists and environmentalists.
Staff member Wayan Sukara, a WWF field worker who was born to a turtle-trading family, now nurtures the animals he used to eat. "It tastes like pig meat," he recalls.
Most locals had learnt to protect turtles, Sukara said, but turtle satay could still be bought in the village.
On weekends, tourists can buy turtle meat at roadside stalls. "We speak to them [the sellers]," he said. "Sometimes we don't know about the meat. Is it pure turtle, or mixed, or do they just say it's turtle?
"We can't stop all the turtle trading in Bali without law enforcement … some people behind the activity are hard people with big money."
But the turtle centre was gradually teaching conservation values and the turtle releases helped fund jobs, Sukara said.
When the Herald visited, we joined WWF in releasing 100, two-month-old hatchlings.
The next day a marine expert, Windia Adnyana, told us many would not survive. "Ideally turtles should be released when they hatch. They have a 'swimming frenzy' to escape from predators," he said. "Yesterday was a feast for fish."
WWF's Lida Soede conceded a trade-off between the environmental and educational values of the centre and such releases, but he said the collaboration with locals had led to a drastic reduction in turtle trading.
Realising that thousands of turtles were dying in the waters around Bali each year, snared by nets and tuna long lines, the WWF began providing turtle-friendly circle hooks to replace conventional ones.
It seems to be working. Four years back not a single turtle nest could be found on the isolated beach where we released the hatchlings. This year there were six.
Talking to roadside vendors on the trip back, one woman said angrily that no turtle meat was sold on Serangan, but down the road we were told of three places to get it.
