Public pressure proves vital for turtle conservation

Public pressure proves vital for turtle conservation

I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar, Bali

The recent police operation against turtle poaching in Bali has revealed something important; the effectiveness of sustained public pressure in motivating law enforcement officers to take firm action against the continuing illegal poaching and trade of sea turtles.

A senior police officer has acknowledged the operation was launched as a response to the growing public outcry over the illicit trade and the perceived police indifference toward the problem.

"This is our answer to the many pointed questions and suggestions presented to us in the recent weeks by the public," Bali Police spokesman Snr. Comm. Reniban AS said.

In the pre-dawn operation on Friday, two police patrol boats succeeded in intercepting a poacher's boat in the Badung Strait, some 10 nautical miles from shore. Inside the hull of the wooden boat, the officers found 86 green turtles (Chelonia mydas) stacked one upon another in a poor condition, dehydrated and with capture wounds on their flippers.

The police took the boat's skipper, Nuriyamin, 34, into custody. He told police the boat had sailed from Wanci in southeast Sulawesi. The turtles, according to Nuriyamin, were poached from the waters around Maluku and Papua. The boat was apparently heading toward either Serangan or Tanjung Benoa, the island's primary black markets for sea turtles, when it was caught by the police.

Later on that evening, the turtles were released into the ocean on Bali's Kuta beach in a brief ceremony attended by island police chief Insp. Gen. Made Mangku Pastika and Desa Pekraman customary village head Kuta I Gusti Ketut Sudira.

Hundreds of people, including tourists, members of Kuta beach's security task force and environmental activists from Pro Fauna, Turtle Guard and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), helped the turtles to embrace their newfound freedom.

A few days before the operation, Pastika had mildly censured the local chief of maritime police and reminded him of the problem of illegal turtle trading, Reniban said. Pastika asked the chief to take necessary action to tackle the problem, he said.

"The illegal turtle trade had been the focus of many critical articles in local newspapers and radio talk shows. The chief wanted us to respond appropriately to these public demands," Reniban said.

The people of Serangan island had earlier called for stronger police action against turtle poachers and traders. The demand was issued during the turtle conservation and law enforcement workshop on Oct. 11 and Oct. 12 in Denpasar.

A joint effort by the WWF and the Bali Environmental Agency, the event was attended by about 30 customary leaders and Bali community figures.

"The police should not tolerate this illegal trade and must have the courage to take stronger measures," an influential Serangan elder, Mudana Wiguna, said.

Once known as Turtle Island, the image of Serangan has for decades been tainted by the widespread illegal poaching and trading of sea turtles. In the mid 1990s the number of illegally traded turtles in Serangan and Tanjung Benoa reached up to 27,000 animals a year.

Fortunately, turtle poaching in the area has been in decline in recent years.

With the assistance of the WWF, the majority of Serangan people now are attempting to transform the island into a turtle- friendly tourist destination by establishing the Turtle Center, a mix between a research facility and a tourist attraction.

"Currently, there is only one large and six small turtle traders in Serangan. The police should have no difficulty in handling them I think," a former poacher, Wayan Karta, said.

Unfortunately, this big trader alone is believed responsible for trafficking at least 2,249 turtles into Serangan from May to September this year.

The police have not yet taken any legal action against the trader, possibly because they are worried such an action could trigger a violent backlash from the local community. A few years ago, a small police station was burned to the ground by the people of Tanjung Benoa after the police tried to apprehend several turtle traders in the village.

"This will not happen in Serangan. I can guarantee that the majority of Serangan people will support the efforts of the police. We are tired of having the image of our village tainted by the greedy actions of a few people," Mudana Wiguna said.

The demand for tougher police action against illegal traders first became headline news in the island's influential Bali Post and Denpasar Post newspapers. The following day, a respected public figure on the island, Wayan Geria, issued similar call during a talk show aired on the island's largest radio station Global FM and many people telephoned the station to voice their support.

For WWF Turtle Campaign leader IB Windia Adnyana, the mounting public pressure was the result of years of hard work to raise the people of Serangan's environmental awareness.

"We had to build a public consensus before we could rally public pressure. To get a consensus we had to first make sure the majority of the population had an adequate level of awareness and an understanding of the problem," he said.

It was a long and often exhausting process, he said. However, Windia believed in the long run, public pressure would play a decisive role in the fight to save the country's endangered sea turtles.

"The recent police operation is a fine example of how an empowered community used public pressure to guide the official apparatus, in this case the police, into making the right move."