The Marine Turtle Conservation Program is our flagship species program. We are working with community members to monitor nesting beaches and by-catches. Through community development program, RAP-SL has been able to get the needed cooperation of locals in releasing captured turtles and burying dead ones. The project is largely funded by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The long term goals of the project include the assurance that sea turtles are protected at all stages of their lives in the country, awareness among locals about marine turtles at both coastal and national levels are raised, data collection mechanism on nesting marine turtles as well as incidental captures is strengthened, nesting beaches are protected and community development programs essential for the project, within selected fishing communities in Sierra Leone are ongoing.
Specific objectives include:
Objective 1. Production of education/sensitization materials including calendars, brochures and the reproduction of documents that protect marine turtles in Sierra Leone.
Objective 2. Undertaking coastal community education/sensitization meetings and campaigns about the conservation of marine turtles.
Objective 3: Conducting training workshops for new turtle task force members on marine turtle species identification, tagging and data collection, as well as for law enforcement personnel.
Objective 4: Evaluation of the nesting status and hatching success of the five species of marine turtles on Sherbro
Objective 5: Evaluation of the by-catch status of the five species of marine turtles on Sherbro and turtle Islands, Turners Peninsula and the mainland communities surveyed by the project.
Objective 6: Community development programs within selected fishing communities including the Turtle and Sherbro islands, Turners Peninsula and the mainland coastal communities.
Objective 7: Continuing with the university student internship program.