THE St Elizabeth Environmental Protection Association Ltd (SEEPA) has embarked on a programme to establish a marine turtle attraction in the parish by January 2002.

Last Thursday a team from the group began identifying and staking traditional turtles nesting sites from Font Hill to Parotee in the parish.

The environmental group said it is also undertaking an extensive awareness programme to sensitise residents and fishermen that marine turtles are protected by law.

Under the Wild Life Protection Act of 1982, it is illegal to have in one’s possession the whole or any part of the five species of sea turtles found in Jamaica.

Members of the community are being enlisted as honorary environmental wardens to monitor the coastline to prevent poaching.

Jamaica is home to three species of sea turtles, the green, loggerhead and hawksbill. The Sea Turtle Recovery Network (STRN) at the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) last year reported that data collected suggested that nesting turtle populations was only a fraction of what they were in recent history and that two of the three nesting species, the green and loggerheads, have been virtually wiped out leaving only the hawksbill species “hanging on by a thin line”.

Female turtles almost always return to lay eggs on the same beaches where they were born, usually under the cover of darkness both for protection and to avoid the exhausting heat of the sun. Turtles choose a section of the beach above the high tide mark and with their front flippers, dig a wide shallow hole approximately six feet in a diametre called a nesting pit.

On average a female will lay up to 120 eggs which take between 45-60 days to hatch. Each hatching then makes its way out to sea and out of every thousand it is believed that only two to four turtles survive.

SEEPA is appealing to the public to co-operate by protecting the nesting sites during the seasons.