Moso Turtle Project Blog

Missing Tasiriki

2009-01-16T05:44:00.002+11:00

I worked on the Moso turtle project for two months from October to December 2008. It's almost a month now since I left the village and feels like my time there was all a bit of a dream now...

I arrived in the village with 3 other volunteers and we were pretty lucky to be joining Lucy, another volunteer who had already been in Tasiriki for a month. Lucy was able to show us the ropes and tell us lots of little things about the village that didn't make sense at first! Having said that we pretty quickly learned that you can ask anyone questions and they are more than happy to tell you what's going on. During our first week there was also a wedding taking place so everyone was busy involved in preparations for that. There seemed to be celebrations every night which was pretty cool as we were welcome to join in and this was a great way to meet lots of the villagers. Other highlights included the boat trips around the island, weaving our own mats, Friday nights with the string band (be prepared to dance!!!), lying around in the hammock on beautiful balmy evenings, canoing, snorkeling, beating Kallop at cards, and just the laughter and good times. Am sure I've missed something out!

One thing I learned and could be useful to know going into the project is that this is just as much about the village and the people as it is about the turtles. There are always local guys going to the beach to monitor the turtles and it's a pretty relaxed situation if you are tired/not feeling well etc and choose to opt out of a night at the beach. When I arrived I thought that it was just up to us volunteers and we'd be going over every single night. I think that over two months we averaged about 3-4 night visits a week and saw a total of 24 adult turtles on the beach (also went over a couple of times during the day and saw some babies). You get used to the walk over to and along the beach and it seemed to get shorter with time and as you got more familiar with the island. It was always nice to lie back on the beach and stare up at the stars, listen to the waves, and have some really strange and interesting conversations. And if you didn't feel like that, there was always a game of cards (we played a LOT of cards). Learning the local game of Seven Lock was a good move as this was often a bit of an ice breaker if you were going to turtle beach with some new guys who were a bit shy. Not to mention just a fun way of filling up time in general....could get quite competitive and games went late into the night.

Some of the difficult parts of living in the village were not those things that I'd expected....you get used to the solar showers (and just being dirty a lot) and bucket lush loos. A limited diet and eating at weird times could be challenging but then you always have Fridays to get your fix of cold drinks and familiar food. After a while I began to miss having my own space - when you're living in the bungalows there are not that many places that aren't shared/private but I guess that's just part of the whole village experience and getting a taste of what its like to live in such a small and close knit place. You really need to come to Tasiriki with an open mind and just be prepared to go with the flow.

I won't say I loved EVERY minute of my time in Tasiriki, as it could be challenging at times. Having said that, my first week back in the 'real world' after leaving the village was equally difficult. I find it's very difficult to describe to others what my time in Tasiriki was like and almost don't want to try because I can't do it justice. It was an amazing experience and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. Going over my photos I feel a little sad and miss life in the village more than I expected to. I am envious of everyone who has yet to visit and I hope you enjoy your time as much as I did :)

Other useful bits and pieces...
- hand sanitiser is your best friend
- if you're staying for a while consider buying a Digicel phone or SIM card, they're cheap and you will definately save money compared to using your own phone and card.
- you can buy most things in Vila if you need them so don't worry if you run out of things (although anti-hystimine tablets were REALLY expensive).
- take some cards
- underwater cameras were tricky to get hold of in Vila so may want to take one with you
-be prepared for the physical aspect of life in the village...the walk to turtle beach mightn't seem that long but its a bit different in the dark when hot and humid.

New Season, Lots of Changes

2008-10-02T08:50:00.003+11:00

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

2008-04-18T20:48:00.000+11:00

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

2008-04-14T20:41:00.000+11:00

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

2008-03-28T20:25:00.005+11:00

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

2008-03-28T00:10:00.000+11:00

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

2008-03-18T10:26:00.000+11:00

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

2008-03-18T10:08:00.000+11:00

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

2008-03-17T08:14:00.001+11:00

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?

2008-03-08T20:54:00.007+11:00

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.

Leileo

2007-11-23T16:34:00.005+11:00

This year Vanuatu was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the countries in the South Pacific where a satellite tag would be attached to a nesting turtle. So on Thursday Lui Bell from SPREP (South Pacific Regional Environment Programme) offices in Western Samoa arrived.

Over the last few years SPREP has been working with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) to place satellite tags on nesting turtles in countries throughout the south pacific. The idea behind this is to track the nesting turtles back from their nesting beaches, which they only visit every 4-7 years, to the foraging grounds where they spend the rest of their life.

Some of the turtles that they have tracked in the past have traveled over 3,000 km between their nesting beaches and their foraging grounds. And with the large size of some of the turtles that have been recorded nesting in Vanuatu they must be coming from some very productive foraging grounds.

Due to it’s proximity to the capital city/international airport and due to the number of turtles nesting on it’s beach the site at Moso was selected as the place where the satellite transmitter would be attached. So after a quick stop in town we headed directly out to Moso.

The high tide was quite late on Thursday night so we didn’t encounter our first turtle on the beach until after 12am. With the turtle on the beach our work really began. The beach over at Moso can be a bit tricky in that when the hawksbills go up into the bush to nest they don’t always find a great spot on the first try. Or in this case on the 3rd try. But eventually she did find a suitable spot, dug the nest, laid the eggs, and covered it all back up. All this by 3am.

While I was waiting for her to finish a couple of the guys hiked back to the village to bring a boat around the island and take us back to the village. That was a very long ride….in a very small boat….with a very large and unhappy turtle. Eventually we made it back to the village though and we started the process of attaching the satellite transmitter.

It was 6:30am as we arrived back in the village so we tried to be as quiet as possible getting the turtle back to the bungalows to attach the transmitter. Anyone that has been to Moso though knows that being quiet early in the morning is a bit of an oxymoron. But we justified ourselves with the knowledge that since that group of volunteers were finished and leaving that morning they would either sleep right through the noise after the big goodbye party the night before or they would want to get up early to see the turtle before they left.

I should probably explain now that the way they attach the satellite transmitters is to fiberglass them onto the shell of the turtle. And it takes several layers to make sure the transmitter is secure. And each layer has to thoroughly dry before you can put the next one on. So a bit of a hurry up and wait process that takes the whole day.

But this meant that everyone in the village had a chance to pass through during the day to see us putting the transmitter on. The school came down too and the kids got the chance to give the turtle its official name. They chose Leileo, which means a lady that we’ll watch as she goes away and come back.

It was a long day but by about 4pm we were finished and a bunch of the guys from the village carried Leileo back to the sea and sent her on her way.

The Start of a New Season

2007-10-29T15:40:00.002+11:00

A new group of eco-volunteers arrives today for what will be our first full season on the Moso turtle project. We had only just partnered up with an eco-volunteer company at this time last year. So by the time they advertised the project we were only able to get volunteers in for the end of the season. But this year we will run a full 5 month season (October-March).

Gearing Up For Another Season

2007-10-08T15:05:00.003+11:00

October means it's almost time for the eco-volunteers to start arriving which means big changes for the community of Tasiriki out on Moso. It's time to finish any 'improvements' that have been planned for the volunteer housing and time to get some local volunteers out to the island and over to the turtle beach.

This year there is a major upgrade underway for the bungalows. The exteriors are becoming more permanent with a change from coconut leaf walls to rock walls. And inside each of the bungalows the open 4 bed dorm style room is being split into two seperate rooms with two beds in each. The shower facilities have also changed so that now there are two seperate shower rooms and the toilet has been upgraded from a pit toilet to a bucket flush.

Results of the 2006-2007 Nesting Season

2007-05-05T14:55:00.000+11:00

The community turtle monitors have dug up the last of the hatched nests from the season so I'm posting the results from that work.

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

A pretty good start to the project.

Time for a Rest

2007-04-20T12:34:00.007+11:00

Well, it's been an interesting 6 weeks at the Moso turtle project. The first group of 5 eco-volunteers have come and gone, and the nesting season is done for the year. And we've just finished a project follow-up meeting with the community to assess how they thought the project went this year and if they are interested in continuing on with it next season.

It was a good group for the community to start with I think. A variety of ages, backgrounds, experiences and expectations. We were all definitely on a steep learning curve as the weeks passed but I think that actually maybe made the experience that much stronger.

There were lots of challenges for the volunteers (e.g. the hike over to the beach, the mingling of different personalities, the rain, etc.) but I think the big one is adapting to 'island time'. Life moves slower in the islands, which is a bit of a hard adjustment for some people to make. It means that your ride to town, your dinner, or your guide to the turtle beach just possibly...or maybe probably...will be a bit late. But it also means that lazing in a hammock reading a book to pass the afternoon is acceptable if not expected.

The group definitely did have a positive impact though. More time was spent over on the turtle nesting beach, the kids at the school learned a few new things and the community made some new friendships.

When it was time to leave the good-bye party outdid the welcome ceremony and the line of people seeing the volunteers off to the boat home was as full of people as it was tears.

So will the project continue on next season? You bet it will!

The First Volunteers Arrive

2007-01-29T12:22:00.001+11:00

It's been almost a year since we first thought about doing an eco-volunteer project and today the first group of volunteers finally arrive. There are 4 coming in today for a month long stay and then there is another one who couldn't make the start date so he will be arriving in 2 weeks for a month.

Now is when we really put the project to the test and find out how ready the community really is!

Live and on the Air

2006-12-08T11:56:00.001+11:00

Some kind of cool news to report on. One of those word of mouth things happenned this past weekend when a New Zealand news crew was here to cover some other stories and heard about the Moso turtle project. So after they were finished with their filming in Port Vila they headed over to Moso to do a story on the project.

The crew were really great and got some good interviews and footage both in the village and over on the nesting beach. The link for the interview is here http://www.tv3.co.nz/News/NewsDisplay/tabid/209/articleID/19279/Default.aspx

Testing, Testing

2006-11-28T11:27:00.005+11:00

It's been a busy few months and everything is falling into place with the project. Funding was secured. We partnered with an eco-volunteer company. Bungalows were built for the project. We did some training with the community turtle monitors and got them started on the turtle nesting survey. And now we're testing out the project.

We figured in order to get the community some practice at hosting and working with the eco-volunteers it might be a good idea to have some of the long-term (1-2 years) volunteers who are working in town (Port Vila) come out on weekends. This would give the community some practice in feeding and housing the volunteers as well as give the turtle monitors some practice in working with people over on the nesting beach.

It's been good. The bungalows were officially opened when the first group arrived amidst flowers, speeches and the music of the village stringband. We've had some amazing nights over on the beach, full moon night especially are indescribable. All the groups have had a lot of fun with the adventure of hiking across the island and then walking the beach, hoping to come across a turtle. And luckily enough I think we've found at least one for every group!

Moso Turtle Project Partners With GVI

2006-10-02T11:07:00.001+11:00

Well it's been a few months of correspondence with eco-volunteer companies to see if we could find one that was a good fit for the turtle conservation project at Moso. After talking with quite a few companies it seemed like Global Vision International (GVI) would be the best fit for our little project here.

So while the discussions have gone well the final step before approval was to have someone from GVI come to the site to visit. Just as a final check to make sure the site was suitable, the community was really onboard, etc.

The trip went well I think. We had some good discussions with the community. Went over to check out the beach (sadly no turtles were found but some beach barbecued fresh fish helped to soften the disappointment a bit I think). And we picked out the site for the volunteer bungalows.

And after the trip was finished the final verdict was that GVI, Wan Smolbag and the community would give this project a go. You can find the GVI webpage for this project at http://www.gvi.co.uk/pages/projectDetail.asp?expedition=116

MCAF Provides a Home for the Volunteers

2006-09-22T10:53:00.003+11:00

Once the community had made the final decision to host an eco-volunteer project we started to look for a way to fund some type of housing for the volunteers. And today that funding became a reality.

The Marine Conservation Action Fund (MCAF) out of the New England Aquarium, in Boston, has not only agreed to fund the costs of building some bush style bungalows but they have also agreed to pay the wages of 2 community turtle monitors for the full five month nesting season! This is a huge thing since we don't know when the eco-volunteers part of the project will get started. With this funding though it means the community can get the project underway and be into the swing of doing a really small scale survey by the time the volunteers arrive. Then with the additional manpower the survey can go into full swing.

If you want to see more information about the MCAF you can find it here http://www.neaq.org/scilearn/conservation/caf.html

Moso Signs on to Eco-Volunteer Project

2006-06-30T10:34:00.003+11:00

After a few months of one on one discussions about the possible interest of trying an eco-volunteer project Wan Smolbag was finally able to hold a full community meeting out in the village. After discussing exactly what it would mean for the community to try hosting a conservation project, there was full community support of the idea.

So the next step is to partner up with an eco-volunteer sending company and build someplace for the volunteers to stay.