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Drifting towards extinction

Nestling in the back of a curving bay in remote Huidong county, Guangdong, is a collection of tiny plots with numbered headstones, resembling a miniature graveyard. They are, in fact, the birthplaces of one of China's most endangered reptiles: the green turtle.

Here, hundreds of eggs like table-tennis balls are buried half a metre deep in the cool sand, laid by a turtle that lugged itself up the beach to dig a natural incubator for her offspring. Her task performed, she returned to the safety of the sea, leaving the next generation to fend for itself.

But mainland midwives have stepped into the breach, in the form of wardens from Gangkou National Turtle Reserve.

A thriving fishing port 180 kilometres from the Hong Kong border, Gangkou is a world away from Shenzhen's gleaming skyscrapers. Fishing boats jostle alongside the muddy wharf, eager to unload their glistening catches. A trading hub and natural harbour for the 25,000 people of the surrounding paddy fields and coastal waters, it seems just like any other bustling market town in rural Guangdong. But beyond a forested ridge, hidden from the bustling town, lies its best-kept secret.

Above the swath of sand and surf, eight wardens take turns to keep a round-the-clock watch at a ramshackle outbuilding over Turtle Beach, the only protected zone for the endangered species in China. Thirty years ago, turtles returned to 20 beaches along the coast of southern China. Today only three beaches are known turtle-nesting sites: one on Hainan Island and two at Gangkou.

On a peninsula bordering Daya Bay - the deep inlet northeast of Mirs Bay - Gangkou's turtle reserve runs almost parallel with the nuclear power plant on the opposite side. It was here in 1984 that local authorities designated Turtle Beach a reserve. Last April the State Oceanic Administration accorded the area national status, making it one of 15 such coastal reserves in China.

Green turtles, which are found throughout the Indian and Pacific oceans, are listed by the International Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and protected under mainland law.

But, in most cases of this kind in Asia, extensive legal protection has proved no match for rapid coastal development, intensive fishing and traditional culture, which prizes turtle meat and eggs as delicacies.

Many countries in the region harvest turtles for not only their eggs and meat but also their shell which is made into ornaments.

Conservationists have identified Indonesia as the worst culprit, with up to 50,000 turtles a year believed to be killed on its shores, many on Bali. In Hong Kong there have been rare reports of turtles returning - only for their eggs to be stolen by villagers.

Combine the external threat to their unique homing device and their late maturation, and the risk of extinction becomes clear.

Scientists are uncertain how turtles navigate thousands of kilometres across oceans, but one trait is certain: pregnant females are programmed to return to the beach where they hatched to lay their eggs.

If they find their birthplace developed or disturbed, the turtles absorb the unlaid eggs and return to the sea.

Turtles, which can reach 100 years of age or more, take 30 years to reach sexual maturity, so today's generation - vastly reduced worldwide - is the product of massive harvesting in the 1960s.

Nowhere was that process more disastrous than in China, where millions had little choice but to eat whatever was available after the communists won power in 1949.

Koon Wai-ping, who is in charge of Gangkou National Turtle Reserve, says: 'Here in the town of Gangkou anyone over 20 years old will have eaten sea turtle eggs because there were so many in the past.' The eggs were eaten salted and dried, and recommended as a cure for diarrhoea. 'They are very delicious,' Mr Koon recalls.

In pre-communist days, up to 400,000 eggs a year were laid on Turtle Beach. This is known from records kept by the then private landowner.

When the People's Liberation Army took control of the harbour and coastal area, Turtle Beach fell into its hands also. 'There was no control,' says Mr Koon. 'It was a free-for-all.' Today about 4,000 eggs a year are laid at Turtle Beach. In the 12 years from the reserve's inception to 1996, 38,000 eggs were laid, 80 per cent of which hatched. Internationally, only two per cent to 20 per cent of turtles survive to maturity.

The improved hatching rate since the reserve's establishment was due to the action of wardens in moving the clutches just beyond the sand to vegetated ground behind, where the temperature is more constant.

So far this year, 10 to 12 turtles have laid 18 clutches containing between 90 and 160 eggs in all. In recent years an average of 30 nests have been laid annually.

Tiny turtles struggle out of their sandy incubator after 47 to 59 days, whereupon wardens gather them up, put them in buckets and take them to the water's edge.

On hearing the sea the turtles instinctively rush to the water. With few sea birds in Gangkou, Mr Koon says their main predator is man.

'In the early years [of the reserve], people tried to steal eggs. Some of them cut a hole in the fence and got in and took eggs away,' he says.

But education and heavy fines - ranging from 300 yuan (about HK$280) to 3,000 yuan - have deterred would-be poachers. 'Now there aren't many people because of the trouble and the risk. They are more aware of the legislation,' Mr Koon says. A bigger problem today is fishing. Gill nets - so called because their fine filaments trap fish by their gills - also snare turtles, drowning them.

The worst offenders are Hong Kong trawlers, which are bigger and faster than mainland fishing vessels, says Mr Koon. To encourage fishermen to relinquish turtles they inadvertently catch, the reserve offers a reward of several hundred yuan. Sad testaments to the success of this offer, two huge turtles - a loggerhead and a leatherback - are kept in a bath-sized tank inside the reserve's hatchery.

These two adults, like the collection of 16 one-year-old turtles flapping their flippers through the murky waters of a tank, are kept for 'educational purposes - for the several thousand visitors, mostly officials, who hold the purse strings', explains Mr Koon.

At the reserve's headquarters, housing the hatchery, a bunk room and a dusty office-cum-workshop, the problem seems obvious. 'Working conditions are quite bad,' Mr Koon acknowledges.

Of the reserve's 140,000-yuan annual budget, salaries of eight staff members take up 40,000 yuan. Guangzhou authorities provide some of the money, but there is little support from the county, says Mr Koon.

To build staff quarters, midway between the town and Turtle Beach, Mr Koon borrowed money and the staff raised sea urchins to subsidise the reserve's work.

Of the 14-square-kilometre protected area, nearly half are the waters of the bay, but wardens are helpless when it comes to fishermen violating the rules.

They have an outboard engine but no boat. Though there has been no record of turtle-poaching in the area for seven years, Mr Koon believes this is not out of concern for the turtles but fear of being caught and fined.

But, despite the uphill battle to persuade people the turtles deserve their help, Mr Koon seems undeterred. He hopes to persuade fishermen and the authorities to adopt turtle-friendly fishing nets, which are used in the United States.

Mr Koon's efforts have not gone unnoticed. A new ally in the fight to save China's green turtles is the Hong Kong Marine Conservation Society, which recently offered the wardens a donation - but Mr Koon declined the offer. Instead, says John Wong Man-kon, the society's vice-chairman, the money will go towards buying a second-hand boat for the reserve.

For society members visiting Gangkou, the irony could not be greater. Hong Kong's Environment and Conservation Fund awarded the society almost $200,000 to conduct the first research and education project on green turtles in Hong Kong. So far no trace of the turtles has been found.

Conservationists fear massive reclamation, development and dredging have taken their toll on turtles born a generation ago on Hong Kong's beaches.

For once the mainland may be able to pioneer preservation of an endangered species Hong Kong forced from its shores.

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