Grand Bahama Island Sea Turtle Awareness Campaign

Project Title: The Grand Bahama Island Sea Turtle Awareness Campaign, 2009 SWOT

(The State of the World’s Sea Turtles) Outreach Grant

Project Country: The Bahamas

Survey Completion Date: April 18th, 2010  

Organization(s) responsible for the project: EARTHCARE
   This organization supports graduate-level research projects and accept project volunteers

Project Director: Gail Woon

Mailing address:  P. O. Box F 40064

City, State, Country:  Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, The Bahamas
Tel:   242 374-4945  Fax:  N/A
Email:  earthcare.bahamas@yahoo.com

Web site address:   earthcare.online | http://www.eco-index.org/search/results.cfm?projectID=1400

 Project summary:  The Grand Bahama Island Sea Turtle Awareness Campaign consisted of school awareness programs being implemented in many schools on the northern Island of Grand Bahama.  At the time of our Grant application our Government had promised that the legislation that allowed for the harvest of sea turtles, specifically the loggerhead and green sea turtles, would have been changed on April 1st, 2009 to reflect the banning of all harvest of sea turtles.  However, the deadline came and the laws were not changed.  Turtle advocacy groups continued educating the public in order to have the citizens make it known to Government that citizens did in fact want the harvest of sea turtles to be banned in the country so that The Bahamas could truly be an eco-touristic destination.  The point of this outreach project was to educate the public on the biology of the sea turtles so that they could contact the Ministry to let Fisheries know what their opinion was on the subject.  EARTHCARE was able to make presentations and distribute as much printed information as possible to 33 schools and libraries on Grand Bahama, (1 on New Providence as well), to network with the teachers and to get the students involved by urging them to write to their Ministry of Fisheries.  The best outcome was that The Bahamas Government listened and did implement the proposed legislation to ban the harvesting of sea turtles on September 1st, 2009.

Geographic coordinates of the project site in latitude and longitude:

·        26.659447,-78.52065

 

Principal project objectives: 1. To be able to make presentations and distribute as much printed information as possible to the 33 schools, college, university and libraries on the island, 2. To network with the teachers and 3. To get the students involved by urging them to write to their Ministry of Fisheries to tell the Ministry the views of the young people with regard to the legislation that banned the harvest of marine sea turtles.

 Project Began: July, 2009 

Project Concluded: April 15th, 2010

Funder(s):

1) SWOT, State of the World’s Sea Turtles
2) Conservation International

Annual project budget, in U.S. dollars: $1,000.00

Principal accomplishments to date:

·        SWOT Volumes III and IV distributed to:  29 primary and secondary schools, 2 public libraries, 1 college, 1 university all on Grand Bahama Island; also to 1 school in New Providence, to 2 NGOs and to the Minister of Fisheries of The Bahamas.

  • Outreach educational presentations were made to schools on Grand Bahama Island.
  • Students wrote letters to the Minister of Fisheries giving their views on the legislation to ban harvest of all marine turtle species within the country.

Anticipated accomplishments for the next year:

  • N/A  Project is concluded.

 

Project’s monitoring and evaluation methodology:

  • Volunteers contacted the various schools.
  • Volunteers scheduled the appointments for presenters.
  • Volunteers packaged the SWOT Volumes III and IV for presentation to the schools.
  • Volunteers delivered the Volumes and made educational presentations to the schools.
  • Evaluation was done at the end of the project when it was found that every school targeted (which was every school on the island) had received the SWOT Volumes.

Lessons learned from at least one year’s work on this project: Have your volunteers prepared for many hours of work.  Advance preparation is key.  Have one volunteer in charge of scheduling volunteer visits.  Coordination between the schools and the organization responsible for the project is very important.

Project Conclusions/Final Thoughts:  EARTHCARE is very grateful to the SWOT outreach grant programme for enabling us to distribute the very informative and beautiful SWOT Volumes III and IV to the schools and libraries on Grand Bahama Island.  Students reading these documents will have a better idea of why all of the marine turtle species should be protected so that their global populations will hopefully increase.
 

Web sites that have further information about this project.   http://seaturtlestatus.org/team/grants

 

Report Details
 

·        Final Report on 2009 SWOT Outreach Grant, April 14th, 2010.

·        To obtain a copy email:  earthcare.bahamas@yahoo.com

·        Final Report of the SWOT grant and details of the project

·        Available in English.

Project's main focus:   Fish, fishing, fisheries, 2. Ecotourism, 3. Environmental Education, 4. Wildlife Trade