October 2017

Playa del Carmen, Mexico

XV Sea Turtle Festival

Objectives

Raise awareness and understanding of the importance of protecting sea turtles.

Support the turtle festival committee to run activities that engage children while educating.

Summary

The beaches along the Caribbean coast of Mexico are nesting grounds for the Loggerhead, Green and
Hawskbill sea turtles. However, due to poaching, predators and human activities, many baby sea tur-
tles dont make it to the sea. As an effort to create awareness in this important nesting area, the local
organizations come along to plan and run the Turtle Festival every year, where GVI volunteers partic-
ipate with activities to educate children in a fun way.

Figure 1 Volunteers arriving to the festival.

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Report

The problem has now reached such a level that all sea turtle species are officially endangered, due the
importance of conservation.
Few organizations like Flora, Fauna y Cultura de Mexico and The local, State and Federal government
boards, run a program for the protection, monitoring, study and conservation of the sea turtles that
nest along the coast of Quintana Roo these programs help to protect these beautiful creatures. Part
of their activities consists of raising awareness about the importance of protecting sea turtles amongst
the local community. In conjunction with other organizations with similar goals like GVI, we organize
a turtle festival in October at the end of the turtle nesting season every year. The first day of the
festival involved heading to the beach at Xcacel to release this years baby turtles into the sea, which
Playa del Carmens GVI volunteers attended. After the release of the turtles there was a small cere-
mony held to thank the heads of the committee, local organizations, government authorities and, of
course, the Tortugueros (people who work to protect the turtles) and volunteers who had worked so
hard during the night, patrolling the beaches and protecting the nests. Playa del Carmen GVIs NSP
(National Scholar Program) was involved in this voluntarily and so was able to provide us with ample
knowledge about sea turtles. It was the fifteenth anniversary of the festival and it was obvious that
the speakers felt very passionately about their work and humbled by the incredible work they had
managed to achieve the main spokesperson announced that over the fifteen years they had man-
aged to release more than 12 million turtles into the sea!

Figure 2 GVI volunteer during face painting activity.

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The next day, on Saturday 21st October, it was time for the Playa del Carmen and Pez Maya both GVI
Hubs in Mexico, to come together with many other organisations and volunteers at the community
sports centre in Akumal and run activities that would teach the local people about the importance of
protecting the sea turtles. However, before we could start running the activities we had to find some
punters. So, armed with papier mach sea creatures on sticks and with blue sparkly fabric draped over
our shoulders, we followed behind a marching band, clapping, waving and stomping through the town,
hoping that this would entice the people in and it worked!

Figure 3 GVI community and Pez Maya volunteers before the parade.

There was so much to see: local craftsmen had carved sea turtles out of wood and were selling them
as pendants for necklaces or keyrings; people were selling t-shirts and bags with huge logos about
protecting the turtles; others were running a craft workshop where the kids could make sea turtles
out of plastic bottles and paint them with their own patterns. At around 5pm there was a puppet show
for all the children, in which the puppets engaged with them and fed them lots of fun facts about sea
turtles.

In terms of GVIs role at the festival, we were allowed to come up with our own plan for activities that
the children might like. So, the Pez Maya and Playa Del Carmen teams ran an arts and crafts stand, a
game, a puppet show and a face painting stand. Taking advantage of our National Scholars language
and experience we ran a puppet show called El Origen de la Tierra or The Origin of the Earth and
told a beautiful story of a Northern Mexican myth that the Earth was created by the sea turtle as it
was the only animal who could swim deep enough to bring sand up from the sea bed and sprinkle it
over the surface of the water to create islands. This was a great way to engage the children and get
them interested in sea turtles as it entertained them while teaching them fun facts about the species.
The kids loved it.

The face painting was also very popular, in fact, the GVI volunteers painted endlessly for hours with
the kids never tiring of having turtles painted on their cheeks and many of them coming back for more!
This was a great way to get the children involved and provided the opportunity to chat to them whilst

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painting their faces about what they had learned about sea turtles and what they had enjoyed about
their day.

We were due to go to Tulum on Sunday 22nd to hold the same event there but, unfortunately that
was called off due to heavy rain. However, it was great to have experienced the Friday and Saturday
and to learn a lot about sea turtle conservation ourselves while bringing fun, entertainment and
awareness to the local community.

For more information on the projects here in Mexico, visit:

http://www.gvi.co.uk/location/yucatan/

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