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05/10/06 - Cape Verde seeks to help tourists and rare turtle coexist PDF Print E-mail
ImageThe government of the Republic of Cape Verde has been on a mission to increase tourism to the islands and, by all accounts, has been successful. The number of tourists visiting Cape Verde has jumped from 67,000 in 2000 to 178,000 in 2004, with 60 percent of tourists coming from Italy, Germany and Portugal.
According to the World Wildlife Federation, despite 650 years of human settlement, Cape Verde still hosts a high degree of biodiversity, featuring many species of animals and plants that are found nowhere else. The surrounding waters of the Atlantic provide important feeding grounds for marine turtles and breeding humpback whales, as well as fishing grounds for local and international fisheries. Recent studies have found coral reefs of global significance off several of the islands.
Some are becoming concerned that increased tourism, without careful planning, will negatively affect the island's major attractions — its marine life and habitats.
A perfect example is the loggerhead turtle.
The turtle is on the list of endangered species and has existed since the dinosaur age. A recent report commissioned by the Secretariat for the Convention of Migratory Species reveals that the hunting of these turtles dates as far back as 1479, when the French explorer Eustache de la Fosse reported that leprosy was treated by a diet of turtle meat and by rubbing affected areas with turtle blood.
Marine researchers recently discovered a significant reproductive stock of these turtles on the islands of Sal and Boa Vista in Cape Verde. This discovery has been described as one of the largest in the Atlantic.
"We have found that the population (of turtles) from Cape Verde is the third-largest in the world after Oman's Massirah Island and the United States," said Luis Felipe Lopez, a researcher at the University of Canaries, Las Palmas, which has been assessing the discovery. "In terms of the Atlantic, it is the second largest after the United States. Our first estimate is that around 2,000 females can be found at Cape Verde, with 70 percent at Boa Vista Island."
Every year from late May to September, more than 3,000 loggerhead turtles come ashore in Ervatao, a beach on the Island of Boa Vista.
"Marine turtles have been wiped out on almost all of the other Cape Verdean islands, but they have thrived so far on Boa Vista, where human predation and pressure is lower," according to Dr. Lopez.
"With only 4,200 people living on the island, mostly inhabiting the small town of Sal Rei and a few neighboring villages, Boa Vista is one of the archipelago's most pristine islands. 'But for how long?' environmentalists ask."
With miles of unspoiled coastline itself and uninhabited beaches, Boa Vista has become a magnet for sun-seekers, and its popularity is expected to increase as the government plans to develop the area for tourism.
Boa Vista has the second most hotel rooms in Cape Verde, with more than 1,200 beds in 12 hotels. Four more are under construction, including two large resorts that will double the island's accommodation capacity. Boa Vista has been designated as a future site for an international airport, and officials estimate that tourism development will increase the island's capacity to 30,000 beds within 20 years.
"There are rays of hope as the government starts to realize that it must take the protection of the environment seriously,' said Celeste Benchimol of WWF Cape Verde. "They need to strengthen their environmental legislation as well as conduct environmental impact assessments. These should be carried (out) by independent experts and not by tourism investors themselves."
Working with the WWF and Natura 2000, a conservation group formed to protect the turtles' nesting habitat on Boa Vista, the government has declared 47 protected areas throughout the archipelago. However, the WWF fears that certain areas slated for tourism development are adjacent to, or overlap with, protected areas.
"Criteria for selecting these zones are not always transparent, and they usually lack clear marked boundaries and management plans,'" Ms. Benchimol said. "For example, a project on the island of Sal aims to build a marina and a tourist resort for 15,000 people in the middle of a marine-protected area where humpback whales feed."
In the hope that tourists and turtles can live together on the beautiful island of Boa Vista in the future, Natura 2000 is offering training to turtle specialists from Cape Verde.
"We will employ guides from the local communities," Dr. Lopez said. "If locals can be directly involved in and benefit from turtle protection, the beach will remain a paradise for the endangered loggerhead."
And for the people who visit the islands of the Republic of Cape Verde.
 
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