LEBANON: Lebanese woman fights to save endangered sea turtles at one of their last nesting places in south Lebanon.

Record ID: 737778

  • Title: LEBANON: Lebanese woman fights to save endangered sea turtles at one of their last nesting places in south Lebanon.
  • Date: 9th August 2007
  • Summary: CLOSE OF TURTLES
  • Embargoed: 24th August 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: Environment / Natural World
  • Reuters ID: LVAA8XB9UPO5UEXC437P5EHB2XAC
  • Story Text: Mona Khalil found her life's passion in fighting for the survival of the endangered sea turtle in Lebanon. With the little money she gets from renting her house and some help from international NGOs, she makes sure sea turtles find a place to safely nest and hatch - at least for now.
    Mona Khalil is a rare form of fighter in this part of Lebanon. Her daily job is to look out for the survival of endangered sea turtles that have for thousands of years chosen this secluded beach on the Mediterranean to lay their eggs.
    For the past seven years, 58-year-old Khalil and her team have patrolled the one mile strip on the southern coast every morning to search for newly-made turtle nests and make sure the eggs are safe enough to hatch.
    The years of work have transformed the tiny strip between the villages of Koleileh and Mansouri into a virtual reserve for the sea turtle, namely the loggerhead or the Caretta caretta, and the green turtle or Chelonia mydas.
    Both species have been declared critically endangered by the World Conservation Union.
    The sea turtle can live for more than 100 years and starts to produce eggs at 30 years, going back to the same place it was born to nest.
    Khalil says this strip is one of three remaining in Lebanon for the sea turtle to lay its eggs.
    Khalil spent most of her life in the Netherlands and came back to her abandoned family home in Mansouri in 2000, when Israel withdrew its forces from areas it occupied in the south - to find her new life's passion.
    She turned the family home into a small bed-and-breakfast and is relying on income from that and support from environmental groups like the 'Mediterranean Association to Save the Sea Turtles' and others to continue her project to save the turtles.
    The 22-year old occupation rendered the strip construction free - a blessing for the sea turtle that continued to nest here oblivious to the Club-Med style resorts that sprang up along the rest of Lebanon's shores.
    But this year is unlike any other years. Well into the May-July nesting season, Khalil only found only 32 nests compared to an average of 50 every year. Only six of the nests this year belong to the more endangered green turtle.
    Khalil blames that on global warming.
    "We hear a lot about global warming and things are changing in the world but I never imagined it to be so tangible so fast. Each summer is different than the past and this summer, there is something very odd. We are nearing the end of the nesting season and we only have 32 nests so far, and this is very odd because in other years, the average was 50 nests a year," said Khalil.
    But global warming is not the only thing Khalil is worried about.
    The biggest obstacles standing in her way are the ignorance and poverty of the locals - and hungry foxes that ravage the nests at night looking for their savoury treat.
    The beach is not the foxes' natural habitat. It was the upper hills of the surrounding villages - up until the war with Israel last summer.
    "There were big negative effects caused by the war and it is because, as you have seen, the foxes that are ravaging and eating the nests.
    These foxes should not be living around here but because the surrounding villages were shelled very heavily last year, they escaped and found refuge here and of course it was the turtle nesting season, so they found food and they did not leave the shore," said Khalil.
    Khalil had lived in the Netherlands until 2000, when Israel withdrew its forces from areas it occupied in the southern Lebanon, prompting her to return to her abandoned home in Mansouri.
    The 22-year Israeli occupation had rendered the area construction free as such allowing return of the sea turtles each year to lay their eggs.
    Khalil and her two team mates search the beach each morning for new nests and then insert a wire mesh over the nests that female turtles dig in the sand, usually containing 80 to 100 eggs. The mesh protects the eggs from dogs or foxes, but allows hatchlings to crawl through. But that does not stop the foxes from trying, and for the nests that go unseen, it's a massacre.
    When the eggs are close to hatching, Khalil places them in sand-filled buckets until the time comes for them to go to sea, to protect them from foxes and the crabs.
    Khalil prepared to set free around 55 loggerheads on to a long and difficult journey, in the hope that thirty years from now - if they do make it - they can come back and find a home to nest.
    "The journey of the turtles that have just left will be faced by many difficulties, they will be eaten by the fish, the octopus, the crabs, they will get stuck in human nets, they will get cancer and die. Only one in a thousand will survive long enough to go back home to where they were born and lay their eggs," said Khalil.
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