On a small patch of beach just south of Bentota on the western Sri Lankan coast a small miracle is happening. Amid the rubble of crushed buildings and twisted palm trees knocked flat when the tsunami swept in on December 26, a remarkable, low-tech but hugely effective environmental experiment is coming back to life.
Kithsiri Kannangara is rebuilding his Sea Turtle Project. Kithsiri featured on the front cover of OM, the Observer magazine, 6 weeks ago when Jason Burke visited communities devastated by the wave to report on their recovery. Then his project was in ruins, the tanks he keeps his turtles in all but destroyed, their rare and precious inhabitants swept inland by the sea. Now many of them are back - some found miles inland by people who gathered them and returned them to Kithsiri.
I visited the project two weeks ago with copies of the magazine, to the delight of Kithsiri, who immediately started planning to capitalise on the international attention he had received to persuade the government in Colombo to support his project.
The tanks are being rebuilt with money from donations and from the growing, but still tiny number of tourists now venturing back down to the beautiful coastline that stretches south of Colombo. Fishermen who collect the turtle eggs on Bentota beach have started to deliver them again to the project in return for six rupees each (about 3p). So now an extraordinary daily ritual can resume. The eggs are hatched in the sand, then the tiny baby turtles - hawksbills, Olive Ridleys, leatherbacks and greens - are transferred to large new tanks. After 24 hours, as dusk approaches (to give the tiny creatures some protection from scavenging birds), Kithsiri and his staff carry buckets of turtles to the sea and release them, standing back to watch with delight the frantic scuttle into the waves as another 200-300 babies bid for the safety of the deep water. It is a brilliant project, bursting with life amid the devastation of the tsunami, costing very little to run but doing so much to protect and cherish endangered species.
Kithsiri Kannangara has opened an account for donations to his Sea Turtles Project. Email the blog and we'll send you the details.
