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KUDU LETTER N°3 September 2000 KUDU Dear friends, In this 3rd issue of the Kudu letter, we send you the latest or nearly latest news from our projects in west Africa. We know that some of you haven’t got our first and second issue but what can be done when e-mail or fax copies cannot be delivered ? Some African countries are not very easy to reach by telephone and we’ ll probably have to try to reach you by post only. We find it encouraging that experts in marine turtles outside the USA, Europe and the Mediterranean want to be informed about our activities and to receive the Kudu letter. The Editorial Committee The 20th Annual Symposium on the Biology and Conservation of Marine turtles February 29 – March 4, 2000 Orlando, Florida (USA) This year’s symposium has been a success with about 800 participants; Luis Felipe Lopez Jurado and a few of his students (Canary Islands, Cape Verde), Thomas Dellinger (Madeira), Josea Dossou-Bodjrenou(Benin),represented with me our African cooperation. At the meeting on the conservation and management programmes, Josea made a much-appreciated oral presentation entitled « An update on the conservation of marine turtles in Benin, West Africa ». The team of the university of the Canary Islands presented two posters : Biology of the reproduction of the loggerhead on the island of Boavista (Cape verde, West africa) : incubation period and hatching success; movements of the loggerhead around the Canary Islands (N.E. Atlantic). With Ann Meylan (Florida Marine Research Institute) and Manjula Tiwari (Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research) I presented an inventory of the abundance of Eretmochelys imbricata in West Africa, and I also presented with Manjula a brief survey of the regional coordination along the atlantic coast of West Africa and the following resolution which was unanimously approved. Jacques Fretey 1 Symposium Resolution 2000-11 approved by the Members on the 3rd March 2000 RÉSOLUTION FOR CONSERVATION OF MARINE TURTLES ALONG THE ATLANTIC COAST OF WEST AFRICA AWARE that the populations of marine turtles frequenting the territorial waters and beaches of the Atlantic coast of Africa, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Cape of Good Hope, including Macronesia, are seriously threatened; ACKNOWLEDGING the responsibility of the States for the conservation and wise management of marine turtle populations along the Atlantic coast of Africa; CONCERNED by the harm caused to marine turtle populations along the coast of West Africa by the destruction of marine habitats, industrial fishing activities, trade, and other man-induced threats; The members of the 20 th Annual Symposium on the Biology and Conservation of Marine Turtles hereby resolve to: ENCOURAGE the concerned States to continue their efforts to conserve marine turtles along the Atlantic coast of West Africa and to quickly sign the Memorandum of Abidjan proposed by the Bonn Convention on Migratory Species in May, 1999 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. ******* During the French symposium organised last June 29th by the French committee of the IUCN, the French members adopted a resolution which was sent to the International headquarters of the IUCN in order to be presented and approved by the 2nd World symposium on the conservation to be held Oct-4-11, 2000 in Amman, Jordan. The French committee of the IUCN thus hopes to continue promoting on the international scene the memorandum of Abidjan and the conservation of marine turtles in west Africa. Conservation of marine turtles along the atlantic coast of Africa MENTIONING that the six species of marine turtles frequenting the Atlantic coast of Africa, from the strait of Gibraltar to the Cape of good hope, including Macronesia, are all on the list of threatened animal species ; MENTIONING TOO that marine turtles are listed in Annex 1 of the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered wild Species of fauna and flora (CITES), as well as in annexes 1 and 2 of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory wild animal Species (CMS); DEEPLY CONCERNED by the numerous threats to marine turtles all along their life cycle, such as the destruction and pollution of marine and coastal habitats, the urbanisation of the littoral, industrial fishing activities, irrational exploitation and international trade; ACKNOWLEDGING the shared responsibility of the states for the conservation of marine turtle populations along the Atlantic coast of Africa ; 2 AWARE that concerted and coordinated measures have to be immediately taken to cope with the threats to existing populations of marine turtles ; GREETING WITH SATISFACTION the agreement memorandum proposed by the CMS on the Conservation of marine turtles along the Atlantic coast of Africa, signed by 17 states at the Abidjan (Ivory Coast) international conference of may 2529,1999, jointly organised by the Ivory and French governments and the French committee of the IUCN ; CONGRATULATING the governments of Benin, Congo, The Republican Democracy of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Nigeria and Togo on signing this Agreement Memorandum ; NOTING the 2000-11 resolution approved at the 20th Annual Symposium on the biology and conservation of marine turtles of Feb.29 – March 3, 2000 in Orlando, Florida, USA ; The French symposium on conservation held in Paris on June 29th, 2000, proposes the following resolution to the Second world Convention of the IUCN : INVITES the states along the Atlantic coast of Africa to continue their efforts to protect marine turtles and encourages the governments of Angola, ,Cameroon, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Spain (Canary Islands), Liberia, Morocco, Namibia, Portugal (Azores and Madeira), The United kingdom (St Helens), Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone and South Africa to quickly sign the Agreement memorandum proposed by the CMS ; INVITES the other states to join in and support this international effort, particularly by limiting and modifying their activities in the concerned areas to help to conserve marine turtles and their natural habitats ; INVITES too all the member states of the CITES to enforce and strictly supervise the complete banning of international trade of marine turtles due to their being listed in Annex 1 of the aforementioned convention. 3 MACRONESIA KUDU MADEIRA Madeira is a self-governing Portuguese island, situated in the Atlantic ocean, 531 miles off the West coast of Portugal and 400 miles off the Moroccan coast, approximately at the same latitude as Casablanca, Morocco. The university of Madeira (UMA) is new(1988). The department of marine biology was created in 1992 and since 1999 its permanent premises have been established in the new marine biological station of Funchal, a laboratory built to study the marine environment. The study of marine turtles in this area started in1994. Most of the turtles met in this archipelago are loggerheads (Caretta caretta)but the Green turtle (Chelonia mydas), the Hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata), the Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea), and the Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) are sometimes though more rarely met. In the following part the word turtle will refer to C.caretta. From 1994 to 1997, all the work done on marine turtles consisted in catching, measuring, and tagging them ,using stainless steel Monel rings, on each forelimb. Thanks to this work, we could learn that these animals do not get nearer than 3 nautical miles from the coast. A complete series of biometric data enables us to know the abundance of the different sizes of the individuals met in this area.We also know the various barnacles met and we get on the GPS the exact position of the place where each turtle is caught. There is actually no nesting in Madeira and we can only study the pelagic phase of juvenile C.caretta. At the end of 1996, the European commission approved of a LIFE project (contract n°B4-3200/96/541) to last till June 2000 and related to marine turtles. Its aim was to identify the favourite places frequented by the turtles, covering an area of 200 nautical miles and corresponding to Madeira Exclusive Economic Zone. The idea was to offer protected areas to this species at its pelagic stage .The methods used mainly consisted in satellite telemetry, aerial counting from a small aeroplane, together with catching and tagging by boat. At the same time we counted the accidental catches of marine turtles by trawl-fishing in this area. The LIFE project gave birth to our web site ( http://www.uma.pt/tartarugas ) whose design will soon be reviewed and whose address will be : http://www.madeiraturtles.org . Providing information and education about the environment are the strong points of this project whose best point ( with the publication of several articles and the organisation of conferences) is the recent publication of the book “Tartarugas marinhas na Madeira”. At the end of 1998 we launched a new research project ( project Praxis/P/BIA/11310/1998 financed by the Department of science and 4 technology) aiming at defining as precisely as possible the distribution of the turtle population in our waters. Then, we analysed the distribution of this population by age groups using the technique of skeletochronology which consists in counting the growth rings of the bones. The second important population variable is that of sex which unfortunately cannot be morphologically identified in juveniles. However, we were able to determine it thanks to hormonal blood tests. We also analysed such variables as heavy metals in turtles’ bodies and the composition in stable isotopes which will permit to draw conclusions about the trophic level of their diet. This data will be a posteriori compared to the results of stomach washes on living turtles and the intestinal contents of accidentally caught dead turtles. These comparisons will enable us to give a rigorous description of their diet . We have other goals too. In the near future, we would like to focus more particularly on these animals’ behaviour when diving, our ultimate goal being in fact to understand how marine turtles can survive out at sea and to contribute in a certain way to increasing the population of sea turtles in the world. Thomas Dellinger CAPE VERDE We’ll tell you later about this very good programme launched by Felipe LopezJurado (university of Canary islands) on an important nesting colony of C.caretta within the larger context of Cabo Verde Natura 2000. WEST AFRICA SÉNÉGAL The IUCN mission in Senegal has recently asked Tomas DIAGNE (Rural Funds for Development / Soptom) to prospect all along the oceanic shoreline of theBiosphere reserve of the Saloum delta where we think many nesting beaches can be found and maybe a feeding zone. Tomas handed over a report in November 99 giving the results of the information gathered from fishermen. In June 2000,Tomas went back with Bernard DEVAUX to the Saloum delta where a hundred stranded turtles had been reported. They counted with certainty 35 turtles among which some had external tumors .Then Tomas went back a third time in the middle of June 5 2000 with Jean-Christophe VIE (IUCN Guinea-Bissau). Three more stranded turtles of the same species were reported. According to Jean-Christophe Vié these wrecks were very likely due to net catching offshore. Not all the turtles examined had tumors and these tumors may not be fibropapillomas. We do hope indeed that it isn’t since the presence of such a disease in the area would be very harmful to the juvenile population living around the archipelago of the Cape Verde and on the underwater seagrasses of the National park of Banc d’Arguin ( Mauritania). Which shouldn’t minimize the role played by trawl-nets and will incite us in the future to seek solutions to this problem. GUINEA BISSAU A new start for the marine turtle project Four species regularly nest on the beaches of Guinea Bissau, mainly in the archipelago of the Bijagos. Eventhough a few Leatherbacks, Hawksbills and a few more Olive Ridleys lay eggs there, the predominant species is undoubtedly the Green turtle. The main nesting site ( several thousand nests a year) is Poilao, a small islet at the southernmost part of the archipelago of the Bijagos and part of the future marine park of Joao Vieira - Poilao which should be officially created this year. The national park of Orango (hundreds of nests) is also an important nesting site. A monitoring and tagging programme was run between 1993 and 1995 by the INEP (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas) with the contribution of the IUCN. It was interrupted for logistic reasons and because of the military conflict. A new conflict made it difficult to start the programme again. A new project is currently starting thanks to financing from the International Foundation for the Banc d’Arguin. It will be run by the coastal planification cabinet (GPC) with the support of the national bureau of the IUCN. A working party has been set up with Castro BARBOSA (GPC), Bucar INDJAI (INEP), Amadeu ALMEIDA (CIPA – Centro de Investigaçao de Pesca Aplicada), Paulo CATRY and JeanChristophe VIE (IUCN). This new project will draw benefit from the experience of former participants to the Guyanese and Bissau-Guinean programmes. It should start in May and should focus on Poilao. where Green turtles are tagged (Monel type tags) with a view to knowing the number of clutchs per year, the internesting interval and maybe recaptures in other countries of the sub-area as it occurred before in Mauritania. The setting-up of a network of African turtle wardens should make recaptures more likely. The national park of Orango has started again a survey of the beaches and a counting of the nests. It would be necessary too to develop the survey of the nesting sites mainly on the continent near the Senegal border where tourist activities are numerous. This will soon be discussed with the National ONG. Jean-Christophe Vié (IUCN) GUINEA On Friday night June 23rd, at about 3 am, a Leatherback got entangled in the nets of a fisherman from the jetty of Téminétaye. It was brought back alive thanks to the authorities 6 who informed the National Center of Sciences petaining to fishing of Boussoura (CNSHB) The people in charge were on the spot at 10 and photos, films and measures could be taken. The carapace was 1.83m long and 0.97 m wide.. Then the turtle was put back to sea from the boat of the fisherman who had caught it. Camara M’Mah Soumah (CNSHB) LIBERIA Congratulations to the Liberia Sea Turtle Project (Save My Future Foundation) for obtaining two grants for their sea turtle research and conservation work from The Whitley Award and from Fauna and Flora International. They are currently planning their next field season which will include a pilot project in Bokor Pooint , a site of significant nesting activity, as well as continuation of the survey of the Liberian coastline in order to assess presence and abundance of the various species. To date five species have been confirmed to occur in Liberia (leatherback, hawksbill, olive ridley, green and loggerhead), with the leatherback, olive ridley and probably green and hawksbill nesting on its shores. Juvenile developmental habitat of hawksbills and greens can be found in certain shallow protected bays. A Master’s student from the United States will be working with them this summer. Other ecovolunteers are sought to help with data collection in the future. Angela Formia (School of Biosciences, Cardiff University) CÔTE D’IVOIRE In November 1999 one of our correspondants mentioned coastal villagers had captured a great number of female turtles among which a leatherback which had come to nest on the sandy beach of Azagny. Unfortunately the project planned with the Ivorian ministry of the environment is currently at a standstill. The WWF of West Africa has been contacted for funds. GHANA Leatherbacks, green turtles and olive ridleys have been confirmed to occur in Ghana. The Ghana Wildlife Society has been active in sea turtle research and conservation activities for several seasons. They are running a nationwide coastal monitoring project to assess species abundance, distribution and threats, and to raise conservation awareness among coastal villagers. Due to a lack of funds, most efforts are at the moment concentrated at a study site east of Accra, where an excellent pilot project is implementing several conservation strategies, including environmental education; employing locals as turtle wardens for daily monitoring of nesting activity, strandings and poaching; predator control and studies on nest screening against the pigs that roam on the beach; economic incentives in the form of a credits and loan scheme benefitting those involved in the protection 7 programme. Funds are currently being sought to expand this work to other coastal areas which show significant sea turtle activity. Angela Formia (School of Biosciences, Cardiff University) TOGO Leatherback, olive ridley, green and hawksbill have been confirmed to occur in Togo. During a recent survey Angela Formia observed numerous carapaces of these four species, in fishing villages, marketplaces and souvenir shops. Unfortunately much of the coastline is highly degraded, due to strong erosion, as well as pollution and high population density. Occasional nesting by the olive ridley and leatherback however has been reported and numerous individuals are caught offshore by fishermen. The zoology professor Joseph Esso Bowessidjao of the national university in Lome has been working with his students to survey the coastal villages for carapaces and to gather information on species abundance and distribution. He is particularly interested in conservation activities to attempt to protect the marine habitat where turtles can still be found in significant numbers. Funds are currently being sought for a full-scale project. Angela Formia (School of Biosciences, Cardiff University) BÉNIN Benin’s coast is almost entirely beach, a large proportion of which is suitable for marine turtle nesting. The region west of the capital Cotonou is relatively unaffected by coastal erosion, more prevalent toward the east, beaches are wide, shallow and interrupted only by occasional coastal lagoons. Presence of the olive ridley, leatherback, green turtle and hawksbill have been confirmed, with the first two also nesting. Juveniles of greens and hawksbills are occasionally caught offshore by local fishermen. The high human population density along the coast and relatively easy access to the beaches, threaten Benin’s turtles with overexploitation (for meat, eggs and oil). The Musee des Sciences Naturelles, Nature Tropicale ONG has been working for several years to protect sea turtles and has gained widespread support. At the moment, they are engaged in a campaign to train the members of “ecoguard” teams scattered along numerous coastal villages. Training includes: knowledge of national biodiversity legislation, field techniques such as species identification and measuring, nest finding and egg transplantation, hatchling release and hatchery maintenance. Regular night patrols will be set up for the upcoming nesting season, in conjunction with a tagging programme. PLEASE NOTE: A leatherback was recently captured in Benin bearing a metal tag on an anterior flipper with the following inscription: KDC39 and Hauptner Supercrotal R.T.M. (manufacturer). Because there is no return address, we have been unable to locate the individual or project that has tagged this turtle. Please contact Jacques Fretey if you have any information. Angela Formia (School of Biosciences, Cardiff University) 8 Nature tropicale ONG leading the marine turtle programme in Benin has started up a cooperation with BIOTOPIC Foundation and ANAI (Costa Rica) with a view to improving the quality of this project . BIOTOPIC.Foundation has been working for a few years on programmes for the conservation of marine turtles in the caribbean and mainly in Surinam. This cooperation consists of two parts : 1.field trip of the officials in charge of Nature tropicale in Costa Rica in order to visit several field projects for the conservation of marine turtles (June-July 2000); 2. evaluation of the current project of Nature.Tropicale in Benin (October 2000) by Biotopic and myself; 3.training workshops with experts for the members of Nature.Tropicale and if possible for participants from other neighbouring countries (October 2000); 4. Symposium on the cooperation between partner countries ( Netherlands, Benin, Costa rica, Bhoutan) for the protection of the biodiversity, one of the themes will be the cooperation for the conservation of marine turtles (Beginning of 2001). Jacques Fretey NIGÉRIA The Akassa Community Development Programme and the Turtle Conservation Club continue to play an active role in the study and protection of the marine turtles found in the beaches and waters of the Akassa Kingdom, in the Niger Delta. Several nests have already been saved from predation, flooding or poaching and several adults have been released to sea after nesting or after being caught in the nets of trawlers fishing illegally close to shore. Activities planned for the upcoming season include a tagging programme (thanks to tags donated by Dalton Supplies) and the building of a hatchery for safe incubation of threatened nests. Larger-scale initiatives covering the entire coastal region of Nigeria are recommended, particularly in areas distant from the Niger delta, where beaches are potentially more suitable for nesting. Angela Formia (School of Biosciences, Cardiff University) 9 PRO TO MAC NEWS FROM THE PROTOMAC FRONT CAMEROUN MINEF/UTO Campo Ma’an and TROPENBOS asked A.Billes and J.Fretey to come for an expert evaluation. They went to Kribi and Ebodje from Jan.30 to Feb.9, 2000. The aim of the mission after the project had been interrupted for about one year was to analyse the data which had been collected since the resumption of field studies in Dec 99 , to study the feasibility of egg-transplantation from threatened nests to hatcheries in the nesting zone of Ebodje and to schedule the activities to be carried out by the Campo Ma’an programme during the transition period before the setting up of a national plan of action for the conservation of marine turtles in Cameroon. The mission took place in the presence of Hyacinthe Angoni, a student of the university of Yaoundé writing a thesis on Lepidochelys olivacea and paid this year by the Campo Ma’an project. In December 99 and January 2000 the technical team was led by Hyacinthe and was permanently composed of 5 or 6 persons, each of them having to supervise a well-specified nesting zone. During this period of resumption of the project morning and night patrols gathered information on the abundance of Dermochelys coriacea and Lepidochelys olivacea on every beach between Bekolobe and Mbendji and made an inventory of the carapaces found in coastal villages. Over 9 weeks there has been a total amount of 52 L. olivacea and 20 D. coriacea coming on the beach to nest. It is too short a period to estimate the number of turtles for each species. If this zone is not very much frequented by the leatherback, from what we know about the situation of the Olive ridley in the Atlantic, its abundance in this zone is not inconsiderable. Two testing sites have been chosen for the building of hatcheries : one in the locality of Tala-Ipenyenge and the other in Ebodje. The hatchery of Ebodje, chosen with the agreement of the « chefferie » will be close to the school, which will make it easier to undertake a consciousness-raising campaign. Each hatchery measures 5m by 4. A billboard at the entrance will display the project logos and a bilingual message (French and Iyassa) telling that it is an eggincubating site for the conservation of marine turtles. Jacques Fretey et Alexis Billes 10 TRANS-BORDER REGION OF THE BAY OF CORISCO A mapping and an inventory of seagrasses are to be made on the Gabonese side under the leadership of Protomac and the association « Aventures sans frontières ». Alexis Billes GABON Pointe-Pongara The building of the small museum of “Pointe Pongara” is making a good progress and the association “Aventures sans Frontières” hope that the museum will soon open. Nyamu Campaign The Nyamu campaign of 1999-2000 (financially supported by ECOFAC) on the south beaches of Gabon, from Mayumba to the border with Congo, ended at the end of April. The counting of tracks from November 1999 to April 2000 has made a first estimation of the abundance of nesting leatherbacks on the beach possible. Our results confirm the international importance of the site since the obtained estimation is of 29686 nesting tracks, which represents a reproductive population of 2900 to 5900 individuals for a number of clutches per season and per individual of respectively 5 and 10 clutches. This site is also well frequented by Olive ridley since on a 4.4 mile daily patrolled zone( which represents 1/14th of the 61 mile long beach) 24 tracks of Olive ridley have been observed between November And April; moreover, the campaign starting in November we probably missed many Olive ridleys whose nesting season starts as early as September according to local fishermen. During the whole campaign, 935 leatherbacks were tagged, 4 olive ridleys and 1 hawksbill. The study of 49 nests enabled us to make a first estimate of successful hatching success (67.29 %) and of emergence success (65.41 %) for the natural nests of leatherbacks (let us note that this estimate does not take into account the nests which were entirely destroyed by aerial predators). The in situ protection of nests that we implemented required constant monitoring and didn’t prove interesting, so we won’ t carry on with it next season. On the other hand the transplantation of eggs from natural nests to hatcheries proved very interesting since it provides protection against aerial predators and the rate of hatching success reached 60.76% for leatherbacks and 75.58% for olive ridleys, so it will be continued during the next campaign. In nature, the underground predation of hatching nests affects in average 7.31% of normal eggs and is mainly due to Crabs (Ocypode sp.). A qualitative study of the aerial predation made by Christophe Lequin, an ecovolunteer, showed the role played by civets, genets, mongooses and monitor lizards (Varanus niloticus) in the predation of eggs and the role played by Ocypode, mongooses, genets, civets, white-necked storks, monitor lizards and palm-nut vultures in the predation of newly-borns. A preliminary biogeographical study of the site made by Sabrina Gontier, an ecovolunteer on a training period as part of her studies for a vocational training certificate in the management and protection of Nature, led to an inventory of the fauna and flora of the site.More than 40 species of mammals, reptiles and birds have been counted and 97 samples of plants have been collected, 60 have alrerady been identified. A first topography of the sandy beach has also been made. 11 A conservation awareness campaign has been launched in the coastal villages close to the site and in the cities of Mayumba and Ndindi. Marine turtle meat and eggs are mainly consumed by the inhabitants of Mayumba and of the two nearest villages.During the entire season, 93 dead bodies of sea turtles were found, most of which having been killed by villagers on the sections of the beach near Mayumba. Alexis Billes CONGO During this 1999-2000 season no field study could be done on the 18 mile long Congolese part of the transborder site between Mayumba (Gabon) and Conkouati (Congo). However Véronique Barazzutti flew over the site 4 times in a microlight, from the Gabon-Congo border to Chissanga, 25 miles away from “Pointe Noire”. As many as 90 fresh tracks of leatherbacks and 5 of seaturtles with scutes were counted on december 26th but unfortunately it is quite worrying that 72 dead bodies of marine turtles could be counted during the 4 flights ! A partnership should be made soon between WCS and HELP Congo in order to ensure the follow up of the study of the nesting sites in the entire area of Conkouati next season and in order to ensure a transborder monitoring of nesting activity from Mayumba to the river Noumbi. Alexis Billes SÃO TOMÉ ET PRÍNCIPE In São Tomé e Principe the 1999/2000 nesting season ended on an optimistic note. After a difficult beginning of the nesting season (because of financial problems), with some funds provided by ECOFAC, an additional budget of 80 000 Euros ensured the resumption of the activities. Field activities continues in the same way as the previous season : tagging, relocation of eggs to protected hatcheries, awareness campaigns and lobbying. We also developed new activities : inciting tortoise shell craftsmen to switch to new employments and promoting ecotourism. We tagged a bit more than 460 turtles (juveniles and adults). On the whole, the number of relocated nests has risen on the two islands but nesting frequency of green turtles decreased in the northern nesting site of Principe. In the northern part of São Tomé the number of relocated nests increased. During this nesting season, 528 nests (62982 eggs) were relocated and 50387 hatchlings were released. From a legislative point of view, we’ve made progress. A government decree on sea turtle protection was passed in April. It has not been published in the « Journal officiel » yet (government publication listing new laws), but it already has an impact on fishermen. The authorities helped us several times in making seizures on the market. Next season, a committee dedicated to the monitoring of sea turtle catches (fight against poaching) will be set up. Steps were taken to obtain the signing of the Memorandum of Abidjan in August. As regards firshermen we are putting at the moment the emphasis on the government decree on sea turtle protection : we have displayed several posters in villages and we are going to give out explanatory leaflets and to organize meetings. Files about alternatives to tortoise shell craft are in preparation. At the moment the process is adjourned but it should be resumed in October to be 12 completed in January 2001. These delays were due to the backers' demands regarding this project but regrettably too, to pressures and threats coming from the people concerned. Promoting ecotourism has undeniably been one objective of the project ever since it was started. During the nesting season, we successfully organized several nights of sea turtle watching. At present we are supporting an association of fishermen to help them build a place to welcome the tourists coming to the Northern beaches to watch the nesting of sea turtles. Jean-François Dontaine 13 KUDU LETTER Editorial Committee: KUDU Jacques FRETEY [email protected] Alexis BILLES [email protected] Jean-François DONTAINE [email protected] fax : (+239) 12 23 284 How to receive or not to receive Kudu Letter ? If you are receiving this liaison Letter it means that we know you. You are undoubtedly in contact within your country or abroad with people who are interested by marine turtles or who would be concerned with the issue (environmental ministries, departments of fisheries, waters and forests, etc.). Please give us their email address or fax number, as well as the language they wish to communicate in, they will receive the next issue of this liaison Letter. If you no longer wish to receive this Letter, simply send an email asking us to remove you from the mailing list. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the list, please notify [email protected] . How to participate in Kudu Letter ? 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