Turtle Conservation Program in Perhentian islands (April 2015)

Ecotourism: when a trip leaves an imprint on the common good

We are passionate about travelling and discovering new places. We are passionate about trying to understand de world, from the different perspective of each culture. We enjoy, specially, the nature and its beauty, and the challenge of understanding its operating mechanisms, balanced perfectly from millions of years of evolutions. In fact, everything is nature, and the world we know is not possible without it.

For this reason, we support the idea that the maintenance of all our ecosystems, most of them endangered, are the key for the common good of the humanity and for its continuity in near future.

For all these reasons, the trips that enriched us the most are the trips that we are in contact with the nature, awesome landscape in harmony with flora, fauna and native culture. Always with this idea we have undertaken a long round the world trip during the year 2015, which will bring us to discover the most beautiful and interesting places of the Australian, Asiatic and American continents.

Our trip will be based on ecotourism principles. We want to discover destinations, activities and local programs always environment-friendly, worried about the conservation of the common cultural heritage and fostering local economy.

For this reason, we contacted ECOTEER, and the Turtle Conservation Program in the Perhentian islands. We joined the team as volunteers for two weeks in a just started program in early 2015. The assessment of the experience has been excellent in all the aspects; we will point to the main three

1. Interest and scientific approach of the conservation program.

We consider that the technical management of the program, led by experimented biologists in the field of marine conservation and marine turtles, has focused a project based in an unequivocal identification strategy of each individual turtle. Implementing a non-invasive methodology, based in a photo identification technique to better understand the resident, transient and nesting population of hard shelled marine turtles.

A part from the identification, they work together with the fishery department looking for turtle nests, avoiding poachers and keeping the eggs in the hatchery. They are also developing an awareness campaign in order to inform tourist and local people, how to juggle in a sustainable way the environmental preservation of the islands and tourism.

In parallel to this project, and to add efforts, they work with another team of ECOOTER, who lead the Community Project. Placed in the village and whose aim is to teach and support the islanders to caring for their habitat.

2. Humane treatment

We want to remark the friendly staff who lead both projects. Our warm welcome, the integration to the project and the day work, make us feel as being among friends, they also gave us the opportunity of sharing experiences with local people as in the Malay dinner, a real immersion in a Malay family.

3. The beauty of the Perhentian islands

The last but not the least important, the landscape of Perhentian islands, with vast potential. We did ones of our best snorkelling in there, a part from enjoy the jungle and swim in beautiful coves.
For all these reasons, we strongly recommend, to live this volunteer experience with ECOTEER.