Indonesia is managing the Sukamade Turtle Beach, where eggs of sea turtles are collected for incubation and rearing in a hatchery, before the young turtles are released into the wild. Protecting Sukamade Turtle Beach also means safeguarding the sea turtles‘ reproductive cycle. The first job is to secure a safe, quiet and appealing environment where the turtles feel comfortable laying their eggs. 

The next task is to save the turtle eggs from natural and human predators, and ensure they hatch into baby turtles. The final job is to release the young turtles into the sea in the hope that they will mature and maintain the species.

These are the principal duties of the Forest Reserve Rangers and officers of the Forest Ecosystem Protection group (PEH) at Sukamade Reserve. Every day, seven Sukamade Reserve officers take turns standing guard at the edge of the nesting beach.

When a female turtle arrives at the beach and starts digging in the sand, she is watched by the officer on duty. After she has finished laying her eggs and has returned to the sea, the officer collects the eggs and takes them to the hatchery at the Sukamade Reserve Office.

The hatchery is located behind the Sukamade home stay, and spans almost two hectares. When I visited, the hatchery had 57 plastic buckets filled with 30 to 80 eggs each.

The condition of every egg is checked and recorded daily.

“The eggs stay in the bucket for three months,” said Jumadi, a hatchery worker. “When the time comes, the eggs are moved to a more spacious location to hatch.”

The young turtles are then shifted to buckets containing seawater. The idea is to introduce the tiny amphibians to the ocean ecosystem. When 100 youngsters are gathered they are taken to the beach and released directly in the ocean.

“If we release them any earlier, their chance of survival in the wild is reduced because there are many predators in the ocean,” said Jumadi.

But the rangers’ and forest officers’ supervision of the egg-gathering and hatching process has been criticized by non-government organization (NGO) Indonesian ProFauna Environment.

ProFauna chairman Asep R. Purnama said that the way the rangers and officers carried out the task ensured that the newborn turtles wouldn’t know their environment. Youngsters born and raised in this way could not survive in their natural habitat, he said.

“The young turtles should be released where their mother laid her eggs and allowed to make their way to the sea,” said Asep. But this is not done at Sukamade, so the young turtle has no way of knowing where it hatched.

This information is critical to develop the turtle’s homing instinct, so females can return as an adult to exactly where she was born and lay her own clutch of eggs.

“When turtles are hatched artificially and away from their natural environment, they have no chance of knowing the beach where the eggs were first laid. This means that if and when females become an adult, she won’t be able to find the same place to lay her eggs in the future,” said Asep.

He said the ideal way to handle turtle eggs and give the young the best chance for survival is to utilize a system developed by Professor Colin Limpus from Australia.

Limpus, who has researched marine turtles, believes that a special area should be set aside for turtle eggs to hatch naturally in the sand. This designated area should be free of natural and human predators.

Another alternative, according to Asep, is to create an ecotourism attraction where the local people would be involved in turtle conservation. In such cases, locals would learn to care for the creatures because the turtles would attract visitors to provide them with a means of living.

“The people will have a sense of belonging for that turtle beach and will become a part of the group guarding the turtle’s natural environment,” he added.

“Nature can be sold as an attraction, and will benefit all those who are involved.”