The objective is to monitor the sea turtles off the coast of Espirito Santo
In late June, the Renova Foundation sealed a contract with the Pro-Tamar Foundation to monitor sea turtles off the coast of Espirito Santo. The partnership is for four years.
In all, 156 km of beaches will be monitored, including the Biological Reserve of Comboios, the Indigenous Land of Comboios, Povoação, Monsarás, Cacimbas, Ipiranga, Ipiranguinha, Pontal do Ipiranga, Barra Seca/Urussuquara, Campo Grande, Barra Nova and Guriri. This region was chosen as a priority for monitoring because it is a breeding area for the species Caretta caretta (loggerhead sea turtle) and Dermochelys coriacea (leatherback turtle), which means that there is a higher occurrence of nests.
The implementation of the planned activities will mobilize local workforce – fishermen and traditional coastal inhabitants – to detect and monitor females, nests and hatchlings, also taking into account the traditional knowledge of the population.
The Pro-Tamar Foundation to be Renova’s partner in monitoring sea turtles. | Photo: Jeferson Rocio
“This partnership is important to generate knowledge about the sea turtles, which are threatened with extinction, and contribute to understanding the impact of the dam collapse on these animals. Our expectation is that the project, besides raising important questions about the state of conservation of the species, is also a way of generating employment and income for the population of the region”, says Bruno Pimenta, leader of the Biodiversity actions of the Renova Foundation.
All the work will be supervised by technicians and trainees to enable studies on the spatial and temporal distribution of nests, protection, identification of species and evaluation of reproductive success, among others. The teams will be allocated to the Tamar bases throughout the to be studied area, and will be managed by technicians from the Tamar Center/Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio).