WFP EFFORT TO SAVE ENDANGERED SEA TURTLES
Press Release
WFP/1020
WFP EFFORT TO SAVE ENDANGERED SEA TURTLES
19951128 ROME, 27 November (WFP) -- In an effort to save endangered sea turtles in the Honduran Gulf of Fonseca, the World Food Programme (WFP) is offering impoverished fishermen food assistance to lure them from the illegal trade in turtle eggs.The eggs are considered a great culinary delicacy in the Central American country, where they earn high prices on the free market even though the trade is banned by the Government. As a result, the turtles are rapidly disappearing from the Gulf of Fonseca on the country's Pacific coast.
The problem has been to convince fishermen to stop raiding the turtles' nests on the grey beaches of the gulf during the nesting season. In the past, the poor fishermen have regarded the sale of turtle eggs as an ancestral right and anxiously awaited the start of each breeding season.
In cooperation with the Honduras Ministry of Natural Resources, WFP is offering a full food ration as compensation for lost income for every day the fishermen agree to stop taking the eggs. The WFP is supplying corn, vegetable oil, canned fish and beans to 100 families as part of a pilot project aimed at preserving the turtles, which are included on the Committee on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) priority list of threatened species.
While the fishermen receive food to feed their families, the turtle eggs gain time to hatch undisturbed in the sands. It is costing WFP about $36 a month for each of the families during the three-month nesting season.
To make sure the project is working as planned, a barter system has been introduced requiring the fishermen to bring the turtle eggs to a central collection point, where they are given the food aid on the spot.
The fishermen and their families are being trained in the proper handling of the eggs to insure that delicate turtle embryos are not damaged as they are transferred from the beaches to protected plots.
The project has been so successful that it has been extended to the Caribbean beaches of Honduras as well.
* *** *