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."