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CSE's
International Projects:
CSE-Sponsored, Seri Indian
Sea Turtle Conservation Efforts
Win International Conservation Award
 The
first of week of February, 2005, was momentous for Seri Indian para-ecologists
sponsored by NAU's Center for Sustainable Environments. They received
one of two international conservation awards from a coalition of the
world's most prestigious marine conservation organizations that came
together in Loreto, Mexico for the Seventh Annual Conference of the
Grupo Tortuguero.
The Seri efforts to build local capacity in monitoring migratory sea
turtles have already produced published results and four years of
comparative data. These efforts have been accomplished by some 24 Seri
youth, guided by Dr. Jeff Seminoff of USFWS, and Dr. Laurie Monti and
Dr. Gary Nabhan of NAU's Center for Sustainable Environments. The
awards were presented by Pro-peninsula, the Blue Ocean Institute, and
World Wildlife Fund Mexico to the Seri and to another indigenous group
protecting nesting beaches in Michoacan.
 But
an even more historic event occurred the four days following the
conference. Endangered leatherback turtle hatchlings were released
into the Pacific Ocean as part of the first sacred leatherback
ceremony the Seri have been able to practice in decades. During this
time, the Seri have not seen live leatherbacks more than a handful of
times because less than a thousand female leatherbacks still nest on
the Pacific coast of the Americas. But with the help of the the Agua
Blanca Sea Turtle Camp near Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, the
Seri were offered the rare opportunity to perform the four-day
ceremony to wish the leatherbacks safety on their journey through the
sea.
At first, Mexico environmental protection officials expressed caution
over permitting the ceremony for fear of stressing the leatherback
hatchlings. But when Seri elder Cleotilde Morales assured them all
stresses on the hatchlings would be stringently avoided, she also
recalled caretaking leatherback hatchlings in Sonora when she was just
seven years old. Reassured, government officials not only signed the
permits to proceed, but also personally stayed to participate.
 Although
elements of the ceremony must remain unphotographed and unrecorded by
outsiders, other elements of the leatherback fiesta required that all
attendees—indigenous and otherwise—be face-painted with the same Seri
designs that were historically painted onto the mature leatherbacks
when they were "sung into shore" to attend a fiesta on their behalf.
Although some scientists, inconversant with the intimacy the Seri have
with sea turtles, believed the Seri used to capture the leatherbacks
used in the ceremony, others confirmed witnessing the Seri capacity to
sing sea turtles toward them. The upshot of the collaboration was that
both Seri and Western-trained sea turtle conservationists were able to
see the complementarities of their knowledge which can positively
benefit the recovery of this critically endangered species.
The Seri para-ecologist capacity-building program has been sponsored
by NAU's Center for Sustainable Environments since the formation of
the Center in 2000. With grants from the Packard Foundation, U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, the Overbrook Foundation, and Agnese Haury
Endowment, over thirty Seri have been trained in conservation biology,
ecological restoration and sustainable harvesting of natural
resources.
 At
least a third of the 750 Seri have been involved in the program's
community-based conservation and development workshops. The Seri
language and culture, like the leatherback turtle as a species, are
considered endangered due to their low numbers. But the oral history
in the Seri language about leatherbacks remains rich. After gaining
the respect and collaboration of world-renowned sea turtle
conservationist Laura Sarti, the Seri were asked a simple question by
Sarti: "How can we work together to ensure that your people will be
able to celebrate the leatherback ceremony long into the future?"
 No
one present at the release ceremony doubted that the seeds of that
possibility had surely been sown in the sands of the Baja California
coast, where traditional singers, biologists, and turtles joined
together to deliver a message of hope, and seven tiny hatchlings
waddled their way to water with whales spouting in the distance.
by Gary Nabhan
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