When most people look at Barra Galindo, a sleepy coastal community of 25 families in the Mexican state of Veracruz, they see a pretty beach. When Rosario Alzcorbe Galaz and Miguel Ramirez Sánchez look at Barra Galindo, they see the future of sea turtles.
After participating on Earthwatch projects supported by HSBC fellowships in 2005, Galaz and Ramirez returned home committed to making a difference in their own community. The two HSBC employees are developing a community “turtle camp” to conserve the extremely endangered Kemp’s ridley turtles and green turtles that nest here.
HSBC, one of the world’s leading financial institutions, is sending 2000 employees on Earthwatch expeditions over four years as part of its Investing in Nature program. Through this partnership with Earthwatch, HSBC aims to involve its employees in hands-on environmental research, with the larger goal of encouraging employees to become responsible stewards of the planet. Upon returning from Earthwatch expeditions, HSBC provides grants for fellows, like Galaz and Ramirez, to set up local environmental projects in their home communities.
Mexico hosts the only known nesting beaches for Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, a species that has declined dramatically since the 1940s, when more than 40,000 turtles were caught on film trying to nest in one day, to about 1000 individuals in the mid 1980s. Kemp’s ridleys come ashore to nest in groups and during daylight hours, making them very vulnerable to poachers, hunters, and other predators.
Thanks to the efforts of Mexican authorities and local communities Kemp’s ridleys appear to be increasing. Green sea turtles are also threatened, and in need of conservation. With this important issue at their doorstep, Galaz and Ramirez did not have any trouble choosing how to use their grants.
Upon returning from their expeditions, Galaz (Conserving the Pantanal, Brazil, February 2005) and Ramirez (Baltic Islands Wetlands and Wildlife, Estonia, June 2004) worked with the Mexican government and local community members to found the turtle camp of Barra Galindo in April 2005, where today it is managed by the president, or ejido, of the community with the help of six biology students from Universidad Veracruzana.
Since 1992, Mexico has supported and regulated sea turtle conservation through turtle camps. Although the government provides scientific advice and methodology, the camp receives no funding from the government, and must function solely on volunteer activity from the local community.
“We want to participate in this project because it is the first time a camp like this has been set up on our beaches,” said Galaz. “The task that this camp is performing will help assure that our children will get to see turtles on these beaches.”
The volunteers at the camp take part in a variety of activities to protect both nesting adults and hatchlings, including patrolling the beach at night during nesting season to protect adult females from poachers. The volunteers also transfer the eggs to man-made nests in a secure corral to protect the eggs from scavenging animals as well as from people who view turtle eggs as a delicacy.
When the hatchlings emerge, volunteers protect and feed them in tanks for up to two weeks to give them a greater chance of survival. Without human intervention, only one in a thousand to one in ten thousand will reach adulthood.
As part of their commitment to the turtle camp, Galaz and Ramirez are working on fund raising for the camp to provide the equipment they need, such as headlamps for monitoring the beaches at night, a GPS units to accurately mark nest locations, thermometers and hydrometers to monitor nest conditions, and scales to weigh hatchlings. Galaz and Ramirez also take their turns patrolling the beach and recruit friends and colleagues to contribute to the effort.
“This is a very hard task that should be performed every day to secure all the nests found, but because there are only a few people involved it only gets done every third day or so,” said Galaz. “We’ll get more people involved in it, which will not only help the camp but will also create awareness of the importance of this work.”
Galaz and Ramirez’s story is just one of the hundreds of community projects launched by HSBC employee fellows, extending the Earthwatch experience to local communities around the world.
HSBC’s Investing in Nature program