"Between Waves and Shores",
meeting around an exhibition
Ka.Ty Deslandes, painter

This talk is in keeping with the presentation of the exhibition "Between Waves And Shores", which is held in Kelonia's hall from 2nd of April to 1st of May. The painter Ka.Ty Deslandes will be presenting her work and the movie shot in Mayotte (artistic rituals as a tribute to sea turtles). An artistic sight on the beauty of the landscape surrounding us and the need to sustainably produce and consume in order to preserve them.

Marine turtles,
Extraordinary navigators
Charlotte Girard, Ph.D. in marine biology

Emblematic species of the ocean world, sea turtles are known for their extraordinary powers of navigation. At birth, they find the direction of the ocean and then navigate at high sea where they may remain for several years. As adults they travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometres between their feeding zone and their nesting beaches. What is the secret of their capacity of orientation? What information do they use? In order to answer these questions, scientists study their migration and experiment both in basins and in the turtles natural habitats.

Marine turtles to support ecotourism
Pierre Stéfanica, Director of “Le Jardin Maoré” hotel resort in Mayotte. Ignace Vandry, representing “Iranja Lodge” hotel resort, Legacy Hotel in Madagascar

This conference aims at increasing public and local tourism professionals awareness on Sustainable Tourism. A debate will be animated after presentation of the resorts structure of the South Western Indian Ocean that wished to integrate this concept. These resorts are located in a rich and preserved environment, and they chose to put forward the natural environment by integrating local populations and their culture. Have they succeeded? What are the constraints and the challenges they face? Does this type of responsible trip, based on an exceptional natural environment and presence of flagship species (like sea turtles), enter into a category of sustainable consumption?

Toward a sustainable
tourism in Reunion
Pierre-Yves Caillaud, Director of the hotel resort “Iloha” in St-Leu. M. Manson, Director of the hotel resort “Palm Hotel & Spa” in Grande Anse.

The integration of touristic structures in their natural, social and cultural environment has motivated the creation of two resorts at St Leu and Grande Anse. In a context of intense international competition, what kind of products can be developed in Reunion that propose an attractive offer and still promote sustainable tourism? With the examples of the hotel resorts “Iloha” and “Palm Hotel and Spa”, we will look at the efforts realised in this domain and the difficulties they encounter.

The turtle treasure: the return...
Mr.Guy Lebrun, ex-director of the C.O.R.A.I.L Farm

Guy Lebrun, the founder of the Coral Farm (Ferme Corail) uses original documents to relate the 30 years of events from the birth and through development of the Coral Farm (Ferme Corail). In so doing he sheds light on the evolution of our sensibility and behaviour towards ocean turtles and their natural habitats. The scientific and technical difficulties overcome in the past and the uncertain battles fought on an international level enable Reunion today to renew its historic relationship with these turtles. After over a century of absence, turtles have returned to lay their eggs near the Kelonia basins, thereby vindicating the avant-guard role played by our island in terms of the restoration of the bio-diversity and the effort for durable development.

Confronted with the dangers that threaten the natural evolution of our planet, the history of our turtles turns out to be a credible ecological model symbolic on an international level for the management of endangered species. The result which recompenses the efforts and sacrifices made since 1972 is that Reunion has recovered a treasure – its marine turtles...

Dr. Bernard Bonnet – Ph. D in oceanography
Retired university professor Ex-director of the Laboratory of Eco-physiology of the University Science Department and expert on marine turtles for the IUCN

Bernard Bonnet discusses the role he played as an university scientist specialising in sea turtles (throughout the period of the conception, creation and the lifetime of C.O.R.A.I.L. until 1988) as a consultant to the enterprise itself, to local public instances (prefecture, administration of the Iles Eparse), to national instances (Ministry of the environment and DOM-TOM), to European instances (Environmental Commission) and to international instances (CITES, IUCN, ONG, Becko Association Japan).
He will speak as well about the research undertaken by the scientists of the laboratory which he directed, putting the problems and results into the context of their era. He will explain his conception of the local and international political climate that reigned over those years in relation to conservation, commercial fishing, farming and ranching. He attempts to measure the impact of the local, regional and international decisions concerning marine turtles that have been made successively in the past.

Success and failure of the marine
turtle protection projects
in the south-west Indian Ocean
Case analysis of two villages Itsamia (Mohéli Island, Comoros) et Anakao (south-west Madagascar).
By Valerie Lilette, Doctorate student at Reunion university

The success or failure of the conservation of endangered marine turtles, can only be understood in relationship to the degree of co-operation existing between the conservationists and the local authorities. The new regulations and the improvement of tourism oppose the sale and consuming of these species. A study concerning the symbolic and material place of the turtle in different societies helps us to understand the degrees of co-operation given to these projects which are often subject to the territorial sensibilities and/or to questions of identity.

Green Turtles and Ocean
herbivores of Mayotte
Katia Ballorain, doctorate student at Reunion University

The project is designed to study elements of oceanic bio-diversity dynamics in the south western Indian Ocean and to predict changes in regard to the behaviour of large sea vertebrates such as marine turtles.

Marine turtles are regularly forced to reproduce on beaches far distant from their feeding sites. Therefore, the quality and the frequency of their reproduction depends exclusively on the energy reserves constituted while on their feeding sites. Nevertheless, feeding behaviour under natural conditions is rarely documented because these sites are either unknown or difficult to reach.

The green turtle, the only species of adult herbivorous marine turtle, feeds on phanerogamic plants and on algae from relatively accessible, highly productive and biologically diverse marine ecosystems. The system “green turtle-phanerogamic feeding grounds/algae” is the only model on which it is possible to quantitatively study the feeding behaviour of sea turtles.

Using an ocean feeding ground off Mayotte, this study aims to answer the following questions:
What are their alimentary needs?
How do they react depending on availability of the milieu? What are the consequences on the milieu?

The ultimate aim of the project is to create a scientific base for the development of conservation strategies of coastal bio-systems.

Ocean turtles of Guyana
Jean-yves Georges, Research scientist at CNRS Strasbourg

A precondition for understanding the impact of global changes and human activities on bio-diversity is to understand the ways by which organisms adapt to their changing environment and the limits to these processes of adaptation. Any attempt to do so is confronted with enormous difficulties considering the fact that bio-diversity cannot by studied exhaustively since the environment influences organisms through complex alimentary networks and that in certain cases, such as those of marine ecosystems, the conditions of accessibility are limited.  

We will discuss the case of a large marine vertebrate – the leatherback sea turtle which operates under practically direct influence of its physical conditions because it is at the top of a short alimentary chain centered upon gelatinous plankton whose population are supposed to be proliferating due to global warming.  Nevertheless, the leatherback turtle is considered to be in danger of global extinction because of massive accidental captures by international fisheries.  This turtle is considered to be an ambassadorial symbol for the conservation of bio-diversity.  In order to understand the nature of its interactions with human activity and to identify the necessary methods to remedy resulting problems, we will explain how leatherback sea turtles studied by satellite, reproducing in Guyana and dispersing over the entire north Atlantic, behave in their confrontation with the environment.

Leatherback and loggerhead
sea turtles of Zulu-Natal
(South Africa)
Georges Hugues and Jeff Gaisford of Ezemvelo KZN wildlife

Leatherback turtles are the largest existing sea turtles. They can reach a weight of 800 kilos. They are also among the rarest and the most mysterious marine turtles, living at high seas and diving to a depth of 1000 meters. On the beaches of Maputaland, in the South African province of Kwazulu-Natal, the most significant colony of leatherback turtles and loggerhead turtles come to lay and nest each austral summer. These turtles have been studied and protected now for over thirty years by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife. George Hughes (founder of these programs) and Jeff Gaisford (spokesman for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife) discuss the results of the programs and explain the social and economic reasoning behind these turtles in this region of South Africa.