Name: Mr Aziz Ahmed
Phone No. : 9434273961
Category (SC/ST/ OBC/ General) : Scheduled Tribe (ST), Aboriginal Nicobarese tribe
District: :Nicobar
State: Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Business/ Fisheries activity: Small-scale fisheries
Funding agency (if any): Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi
Subsidy amount (if any) and Total project cost: Nil
Scheme’s name: Best practices Followed
Name of the institution that provided the technological intervention: ICAR- Central Island Agricultural Research Institute, Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi
Technological intervention:Conservation of sea turtle nesting habitats in Car Nicobar Island
Employment generated: Conservation and sustainable resource management in a remote Island
Mr. Aziz Ahmed, 50 a resident of Car Nicobar Island belongs to the tribal community of Nicobar Island whose primary occupation was marine fishing in the inshore waters of Car Nicobar Island . Being a native to the remotely located Car Nicobar Island, he has vast experience in marine fishing and was aware of sensitive marine faunal groups like sea turtles, dolphins, corals, etc. Still, he was seldom aware of the conservation value of those vulnerable marine fauna in the changing climatic scenario. Considering the remote location, lack of information on vulnerable marine fauna, and the critical need for such information towards establishing conservation measures, ICAR-CIARI took the initiative through the DST-SEED funded project on the Coastal Fisheries Information Hub for Nicobarese tribes of Car Nicobar Island.
Considering the information gap on sea turtle nesting data in Car Nicobar, we started organizing awareness camps in the month of May, November 2022, and January 2023 at Car Nicobar Island. We sensitized the Nicobarese tribes on the importance of sea turtle nesting and informed them to pass prompt information upon sighting of sea turtle nesting in Car Nicobar Island. Mr Aziz Ahmed, a tribal fisherman from Teetop fishing village alerted their family upon sighting the sea turtle nest in Teetop Fish Landing Center beach on the wee hours of 11 April 2023 . He saw few baby sea turtles emerging from the sandy nest and started protecting them against the dogs and pigs in the surroundings. He immediately alerted our team who was stationed at Car Nicobar Island about the sea turtle nest, and we rushed to the spot. Based on his early observations, more than 50 sea turtle hatchlings migrated to the sea. Based on his photos and videos we identified the turtle as an Olive Ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea). Our team along with tribal fishers protected another batch of turtles from the nest on the same day and approximately more than 70 sea turtles started their journey to the sea . Our awareness and sensitization initiatives have led to the knowledge of the importance of sea turtles to the coastal ecosystems. The efforts of this conservation initiative are paying off as more than 150 fishermen from Car Nicobar have volunteered and agreed to participate in future conservation projects. We promptly submitted a report on turtle nesting to the Department of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Andaman and Nicobar Administration for coastal land use and policy-level planning in the future.
These success stories prove that the local tribal communities working with the researchers can minimize the threats that sea turtles face and could bring these species back from the brink in a small remote island like Car Nicobar.
Contributors : R Kiruba Sankar, K Saravanan, J Praveenraj, Sirisha Adamala, D Karunakaran, Zamir Ahmed & Mohamed Sarief
