Indigenous ‘turtle women’ help vulnerable reptiles recover in Ecuadorian Amazon

A group of seven Indigenous Siekopai women, calling themselves Tari Nomiowa'i, patrol riverbanks along Ecuador's Aguarico River to protect charapa turtle nests from hunting, pollution and erosion. The turtles are listed as vulnerable by the IUCN, threatened by egg harvesting, boat traffic and rising water levels tied to climate change.

The women collect eggs, log data with a phone app, incubate them safely, and hand-feed hatchlings cassava, sweet potato and taro for a month before release. This season they collected 235 eggs and released 208 hatchlings into the river, with local schoolchildren invited to watch.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.