Konkan beaches are a magnet to overworked Mumbaikars looking for a quick weekend getaway. And, of this lot, Velas―around 200km south of Mumbai―has one of the stronger pulls. The reason being not only sun, sand and frolic, but also the chance to see Olive ridley turtle hatchlings scurrying into the ocean. This is courtesy the Velas Turtle Festival, organised by local conservation groups, and now in its 20th year.
As an important site for turtle conservation, Velas has, over the years, seen several efforts to protect the animals from threats such as poaching and habitat loss.
In 2002, the Chiplun-based non-profit organisation Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra (SNM) began its conservation efforts along various beaches in the Konkan region. At the time, villagers often collected turtle eggs for consumption or sale. However, with growing awareness about human activity shrinking the turtle population, their minds changed. SNM offered villagers more money to protect the nests than they would get from selling the eggs. This worked wonders and the villagers, soon enough, started safeguarding the nests from predators like jackals, dogs and ghost crabs.
Four years later, with the villagers on board, Mohan Upadhye and his colleagues at SNM envisioned a turtle festival to promote tourism and foster ecological consciousness. In 2002, Upadhye, an assistant researcher at the Maharashtra government’s Mangrove Foundation, had quit a private firm in Mumbai to come to his home town of Velas and join SNM.
When he helped organise the first edition of the festival, there were around 45 nests and nearly 4,500 eggs. This has now grown to about 75 nests and more than 7,000 eggs, and Velas stands as a successful case study for a “conservation for livelihood” model.
The state forest department has also played a role. It trained villagers in Velas and other areas to safely relocate the eggs from natural nesting sites to protected hatcheries or artificial pits dug on the beach. They are given a monthly stipend of Rs13,000 for this. Once transferred, the eggs are carefully covered with sand, and a protective basket is placed above each pit. Each relocated nest is assigned a number as part of a monitoring process, and the original nesting site is barricaded to prevent disturbance.
Volunteers patrol the beach at night during nesting season―November to March. They look for egg-laying females coming ashore. As soon as a female returns to sea, the volunteers collect and relocate the eggs. Currently, 23 beach sites in Ratnagiri district, five in Raigad and 30 in Sindhudurg are conserving the eggs.
The collective efforts of the government, the villagers and people like Upadhye have made sure that the turtle festival has stayed around and only grown. Every year, from March till end of May, around 10,000 tourists visit Velas and other turtle sites across the Konkan region. For packages starting at Rs2,599, they are offered dormitory-style accommodation in homestays and Konkan meals. Villagers who don’t own homestays help in cooking and serving meals. Some packages include pick-up and drop from and to Mumbai and Pune. And for those who land in Velas on their own, without any package, there is only a fee of Rs100 to enter the beach. As it is an ecologically sensitive area, the number of visitors at a time is capped.
What they cannot cap, though, is the little turtles’ excitement to get to water. Or the villagers’ determination to help them get there.