New Season, Lots of Changes

Well the new seaon has started out at Moso. The project has actually started a month early this year with the first group of volunteers helping out with a lot of the project set-up this year. So during the next month the volunteers will be helping to clear the path over to the beach, mark out the sectors on the beach and get a garden started to grow food for the volunteer project.

The community hasn't been sitting idly by though during their time off from the project. Even with quite a few community members having spent the last few months picking fruit in New Zealand there are lots of changes to what many of you have considered a home away from home.

I think the improvements to the bungalows are nearly finished now. Some of you may remember back when they were an open dormitory style with sand floors. Now both bungalows are split into two 2-bed rooms. And the floors are now cement which helps keep things cool and clean.

The pit toilet and little shower hut of the first season have been totally replaced. There is now a proper bucket flush toilet and spacious 2 room shower hut.

And new this year is the dining room/kitchen/office. The last of the additions this building was only just completed. This should provide lots of room for the volunteers when they get village bound on rainy days. And it might even be big enough to host the farewell night party.

Recent and Upcoming Changes on Moso

Recent and upcoming changes in the village:
-With the arrival of the new water tanks and all the rain lately the village should be in good shape during the upcoming dry season as they now have an additional 60,000L of rainwater to use
-The new village health clinic officially begins business on May 1st. By that day the government supported nurse, medicines. equipment and furniture (e.g. exam table, bed, etc.) will have arrived. The government has also provided a new boat that will be used to transport sick people from close-by villages to the clinic. And I've been told that the boat is 'very fast' and that the village has been given permission to use it as a taxi when not transporting sick people, so the ride to and from the turtle project just got that much faster.
-A couple of people have already left the village for New Zealand on a fruit picking scheme and another farmer is in Vanuatu right now specifically to recruit people from the village (one of the chiefs is now the agent for that farmer so Tasiriki gets first dibs on the positions). So it looks like a large portion of the younger guys will be heading to NZ in the very near future. Will have to wait and see how this impacts the turtle project.

Other planned changes for the upcoming year:
-The project will start one month earlier this year with the first group of volunteers helping with all the initial project set-up (e.g. clearing the path to the beach, helping to build the dining hall, marking the beach sectors, etc.)
-Dining hall to be completed
-Cement floors to be put into the bungalows
-A monthly schedule set in place for optional planned activities everyday to help keep the volunteers occupied
-More volunteer involvement with the school

Other wish list changes for the upcoming year
-Electrify the dining hall (solar) to provide a better space for the volunteers on rainy nights, and a place to do data entry (see below)
-Try to source a used laptop so that the data entry for the project can be done on-site. If data was entered the day after it was recorded it should help cut down on the number of mistakes that were made on data sheets this year (much easier to correct the mistakes the next day rather than several months later)

Results of the 2007-2008 Nesting Season

The volunteers have finished and the community turtle monitors have just spent the last few days on the beach collecting data from the last of the hatched nests. So the quick summary of the data from the last two seasons is as follows:

*2006*
142 potential nests marked
80 (56%) were true nests
62 (44%) were false nests or the nests were not located again (e.g. nest not marked precisely, markers lost during cyclones, etc.)

from those 80 true nests we had a total estimate of 10,950 eggs
10,089 (92%) of those eggs successfully hatched
861 (8%) did not survive

*2007*
90 potential nests were marked
69 (77%) were true nests
17 (19%) were false nests or the nests were not located again (e.g. nest not marked precisely, markers lost during cyclones, nest taken, etc.)
4 (4%) have not hatched yet

from the 69 nests we had a total estimate of 8,060 eggs
8034 (91%) of those eggs successfully hatched
762 (9%) did not survive

*Possible explanations on number variations between the two years*
1. Numbers of nesting turtles just plain old vary from year to year.
2. The weather conditions were much worse this year resulting in fewer nights spent surveying the nesting beach.
3. There seems to have been some taking of nests this year that didn't occur last year.
4. While fewer nests were located this year the percentage of true nests increased. This suggests that the community turtle monitors are getting better at identifying true nests.


We plan to make a couple of changes to the survey system next year that I am hoping will have some positive impacts. The first change is that we are going to try out more of a beach ranger type system for monitoring the beach. Essentially the volunteers will be split into 3 groups and paired with a community turtle monitor. Those 3 groups will then work in about 5 hour shifts so that there is always a group patrolling the beach from dusk until dawn (weather permitting). We are also going to use a different system to mark the nests so that the nest marker is not directly over the nest (e.g. the marker is 2 metres to the let of the nest). The marking will be different for each nest but will be recorded on the data sheets so that the people working on the turtle project are able to relocate the nest but potential poachers are not able to.

*Possible impacts of the planned change to the 'ranger' beach survey system next year and cryptic nest marking system*
1. Having a presence of people on the beach from dusk until dawn should help deter people from stealing nests.
2. The marking system should make it difficult for others to find the nests. The key to this working will be proper documentation of how each nest has been marked.
3. More time on the beach should mean that fewer nesting turtles are missed. Many have been missed the last couple of years due to the fact we are not on the beach all night.

The End Once Again

It's the end of March and the Moso turtle project is closing down until next season. The last group of 5 volunteers are leaving the project today and now the community will have 6 months until the project starts up again.

It's been a bit of a mixed bag this year with a huge variation in the volunteers who have passed through the bungalow doors. I think the experience varied from person to person but I am confident that down to the last one they have left their mark on the project and it has left its mark on them (that Moso mud never comes out!).

Three Months On Moso

Hello, my name is Juliette and I volunteered on Moso Island for three months. Most people only do it for a month, or at most (there were two people while I was there) for two months. I did three. Now I see why I was the only one. Three months is a long time and you really get under the surface of things that are happening. When I compared what I knew - in terms of the people, about the village, Vanuatu in general, and the project- from the beginning (after one month) to the end (after three months) my understanding was so much deeper and layered. That for me was a plus, because I came to learn about another culture, help some turtles, and try a different life (living in a completely different environment and coming from a culture which has a lot of material things, to one which doesn't) and definitely to learn some things. Other things are that after three months of eating boiled rice and potatoes you become a little desperate for certain things (french fries, cheese, chicken sandwich, chocolate, ice cream - hell anything COLD - and filled with fat and salt). It's also really easy to get caught up in the island way of things (which means doing a lot of nothing at a slow pace). So be careful of that and stay on task! It's pretty much up to the volunteers to go out and make things happen.

The turtles were amazing though. being so close to them and being able to observe a spectacle very few have the privilege of certainly was worth everything. The island itself is gorgeous. Snorkeling (or, as Michelle might know, looking for sharks, watersnakes, lionfish and other poisonous things I wanted to get close to) was a big pastime (and I saw reef sharks! and sea snakes, but no lionfish. *sigh*). I did have the fortune of seeing (two) turtles while in the water (on two separate occasions). It was surprisingly different from seeing them on land. They are really quite big, but also very graceful - and fast! I also saw hatchlings - coming right up out of the nest - and make their way to the water. I saw a dugong too (sea cow, or manatee) which hung out near the village, and an eagle ray. I did a few hikes into the jungle to some beautiful remote beaches - the villagers act as very useful guides and are happy to take you places and show off their beautiful home.

Those were some of the highlights. So you definitely see some cool things there - and the longer you stay the more you see. Some people just like to breeze through and not get entangled in some of the stickier bits, and its really up to the individual volunteer with what and how deeply they involve themselves. It certainly was a positive experience, as a whole, and I am very glad I went. Don't know how soon I would go back, but it would be interesting to see where all my village friends will be in a few years.

New Health Clinic

With the community wanting to combine the official opening for the new school block and the new health clinic on the same day it has meant that everyone has put their all into getting the clinic ready in time. And while the finishing touches were still being added right up until a few minutes before the official opening, everything was done in time. The new health clinic will make a huge difference to the health of the community and provide on island health care for the GVI volunteers. The clinic was made possible through funding by the Canada Fund and labour provided by the community and the GVI volunteers.

New School Block

It's been about 6 month from grant approval to the official opening, but the Tasiriki Primary School now has a second classroom block. The new school block has been made possible with funding from the Cyclone Ivy Fund (EU) and labour from the community, Youth Challenge International and the GVI volunteers.

Under the Sea

One of the good things about the location of the Moso turtle project is that there is a small dive resort on the far end of the island. So this has meant that over the past two years many of the volunteers have taken advantage of this to get their diving certification or just gone for a couple of dives.

War Paint?

I'm not sure what proportion of paint made it on the new health clinic versus on the volunteers but I think everyone had a good time. And the community and volunteers manged to build a new school block and the health clinic in record time.