With only about one in every 1,000 sea turtles surviving to adulthood, several concerned individuals founded the Lang Tengah Turtle Watch (LTTW) project to protect the turtles’ habitats and help save them from extinction through vigilant protection and community involvement.
Lang Tengah Turtle Watch is one of the winners for the Star Golden Hearts Award 2023, an annual award by The Star and Yayasan Gamuda that recognises selfless Malaysian unsung heroes who make a positive impact on society and promote unity among the people.
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Lang Tengah Turtle Watch is one of the winners for the Star Golden Hearts Award 2023, an annual award by The Star and Yayasan Gamuda that recognises selfless Malaysian unsung heroes who make a positive impact on society and promote unity among the people.
For more SGHA videos, visit https://www.sgha.com.my/
WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar
LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hi, I'm Selin. We are Lang Tengah Turtle Watch,
00:03 a bunch of turtle warriors who protect turtles and their habitats.
00:07 We are the winner of the STAR Golden Hearts Award 2023.
00:11 It is a sight to behold whenever turtle hatchlings emerge from their nests
00:22 and race to the ocean as fast as possible
00:25 because if they don't, they will die of dehydration or become food for birds, crabs and other animals.
00:32 With only about one in every 1,000 turtles surviving to adulthood,
00:39 several individuals founded the Lang Tengah Turtle Watch
00:42 LTTW project to protect the turtles' habitats and help save them from extinction.
00:50 Like its name, Lang Tengah Turtle Watch, it was founded in Lang Tengah Island by Hayati Mokhtar.
00:56 So she owns a piece of land there and when she actually went there,
01:00 she realised that a lot of things have changed, like the corals have degraded
01:05 and she noticed there's also turtle nesting there and she wanted to save the turtles
01:11 because at that time people actually can collect the eggs for consumption and sale.
01:16 Besides Lang Tengah Island, the Turtle Conservation Organisation
01:20 also has project sites in Tanjung Jara Resort and Cakar Hutan Beach in Trengganu.
01:26 The project sites in Lang Tengah Island and Tanjung Jara Resorts
01:31 are home to the endangered green turtles and critically endangered hawksbill turtles.
01:37 According to Dr Long, such conservation efforts are critical
01:42 as there have been no recorded nestings of leatherback turtles in Trengganu since 2017,
01:48 despite the fact that its Randau Abang Beach had 10,000 leatherback turtle nests
01:54 recorded yearly in the 1950s.
01:56 It's an iconic species and they're also endangered.
02:00 Trengganu used to have leatherback as their state logo and now it's nemo
02:05 because we lose our turtles so if possible we want to still save what's our heritage.
02:11 LTTW's seven main initiatives are night patrols, turtle monitoring, coral restoration,
02:19 beach and underwater cleanups, outreach and training programmes,
02:24 empowering communities and livelihoods and adoption programmes.
02:29 The primary strategy for protecting the mostly green turtle population
02:34 entails night patrols by nine former poachers who have joined the LTTW team
02:40 to monitor the island's nesting beaches between March and October.
02:45 To ensure a good hatching success, Long said the team would monitor and look after the eggs
02:57 for about two months for green turtle eggs and three months for painted terrapin eggs.
03:04 To date, LTTW has saved 2,264 nests of green turtles, hawksbill turtles and painted terrapins.
03:13 It has also released over 118,000 green and hawksbill turtle hatchlings into the ocean.
03:21 As we protect the species, we also protect their habitat so that's where we do
03:27 beach cleanup, underwater cleanup and also we started restoring the coral reef area
03:32 because that's where they actually feed and take shelter.
03:34 She added that broken coral fragments are grown back in a nursery at Turtle Bay on
03:41 Lang Tengah Island before being outplanted into natural reefs.
03:45 Since 2018, 757 corals have been saved and grown in a nursery and 405 corals were transplanted.
03:57 As for its outreach program, Dr Long said LTTW's most recent project at Chakka Hutan Beach
04:04 provided an opportunity to collaborate or engage local communities because it is a public area.
04:11 It allows the public and especially the local people who live there to actually come
04:17 and learn more about turtles and understand conservation efforts and if they want to be
04:21 part of it they can join us. A former forest ranger fondly known as Bob Hashim guides the
04:28 turtle hatchery at the Chakka Hutan Beach to prevent poaching and entertain any visitors
04:34 with other hatchery staff.
04:51 Dr Long said LTTW actively purchased turtle eggs from 12 local license holders since 2016
04:59 to empower the community and their livelihoods.
05:02 She added that members of the public can also contribute by adopting a nest,
05:08 a turtle or a coral through LTTW's official website as this will help make sure as many
05:14 hatchlings go out to the ocean as possible. Debunking many common misconceptions
05:20 about the importance of preserving sea turtles, Dr Long said turtles are critical in maintaining
05:27 our ecological importance. You might not actually see it directly because it doesn't affect you
05:32 when they go extinct or something but they play a role out there. They are predators and they
05:37 are also prey. So for example when we had leatherbacks there of course they control
05:43 the population of jellyfish because that's their prey. So when you take one predator out then it
05:48 kind of changes the balance as well. Aside from funding, she stressed the importance of people's
05:54 and stakeholders' cooperation. The most crucial is not just money but the cooperation from people
06:03 we work with, stakeholders we work with because a lot of things involve them to change or even
06:08 support certain measures that we suggest. So that requires ongoing discussion as well.
06:17 Besides grants from local sponsors, Dr Long said they will also look for funding abroad,
06:23 especially from the global turtle community. She added that LTTW intends to participate in more
06:31 information sharing, training and capacity building activities at the International
06:36 Sea Turtle Symposium next March. The thing with conservation is that you always have this feeling
06:42 that are we doing enough and we are racing against time. When a species goes extinct,
06:48 even when you have the money or something, you might not be able to bring back the species. So
06:53 whatever efforts need to be done, it has to be prior before they go extinct.
06:57 [Music]
07:17 [BLANK_AUDIO]