The front page of  the Seychelles turtle web site to be maintained by the Turtle Action Group of Seychelles (TAGS). Image courtesy MCSS

The web site comprises of two main areas, a public access area giving general information There are a currently 20 turtle monitoring programmes active in Seychelles, some of which have been monitoring turtles for more than 20 years. As such, there is a considerable amount of time and effort being put into turtle monitoring. However, key factors identified that would improve the survival status of the Seychelles turtle populations were a clear strategic overview of the status of turtle rookeries and habitat, and better coordination of communications and activities between the various stakeholders involved in turtle monitoring and turtle conservation. 

This project was devised by the Marine Conservation Society Seychelles (MCSS) to fulfill this need and to bring stakeholders together into “a partnership of equals” to allow the sharing of information and data in order to enable the establishment and effective functioning of a national database. This in turn will allow the timely updating of a Strategy and Action Plan to allow for more effective management and conservation of turtles in Seychelles.

The project was from its inception based upon stakeholder consensus and was driven through a process of three stakeholder workshops. The first of these developed a Memorandum of Understanding between the individual organizations which is the core of the project enabling the sharing of data through the common database facility. At the same workshop an outline of the Strategy and Action Plan was developed.

Stakeholders from 11 organizations were trained in turtle monitoring techniques.

A review of the needs and capacities of the various participating organizations was undertaken by the project consultant, Dr Jeanne Mortimer, who used this information to develop a series of standardized monitoring protocols that would provide the information that the monitoring organizations needed as well as the data needed to update the Strategy and Action Plan. Staff members from the various organisations were then trained in these techniques in two training sessions in October 2003.

The database design was contracted to local company Victoria Computer Services who, with input from MCSS project staff and the project consultant, started work on the framework for the database. This initial framework was presented to the participating organisations at a second workshop in September 2004, where the Strategy and Action Plan was also further developed.

Follow-up, on-site training continued through 2004 with the project consultant visiting a number of the monitoring organisations for direct activities. Project staff from MCSS also continued with development and trials of additional monitoring methodologies and also the initial testing of the database module.

A third workshop was held at the end of March 2006, at which the web site that is needed to support the database was revealed to the participating members and other interested parties. A logo and domain name for the site were also chosen. The site was made available on the VCS server for a period of four weeks to enable the updating or changing of the site as per the suggestions of the participating organisations.

A number of comments were received many of which focused around the long-term aspects of supporting the web site or expanding it and a further meeting was held at the end of June to discuss these issues. At this meeting the participating organisations agreed to form the Turtle Action Group of Seychelles (TAGS) as a result of the Strategic Management of Turtle Populations project. It was agreed that TAGS would manage the web-site and database once the site goes live and will coordinate the monitoring of turtles to enable their strategic management and their conservation throughout Seychelles.

The web site www.seychellesturtles.org, is now live and already is generating a lot of on-line visits. The site contains information about the various monitoring projects being implemented by the members of TAGS as well as general information on the two species of turtles commonly found nesting in Seychelles. There is a reporting facility that will in time allow the generation of reports on the status of Seychelles Turtles and there is a section with guidelines on turtle watching and turtle sensitive beach use and development.