TCC featured in the September 2010 La Tortue magazine
Bernard Devaux is a leading turtle conservationist who has created a series of educational “turtle villages” around the world and has worked tirelessly for the conservation of wild populations of turtles and tortoises. He is the recipient of the Behler Award in 2010, an award that honors the life-time achievements of senior turtle and tortoise conservationists as well as current conservation efforts by younger individuals who are making major contributions to the field. He keeps specialists informed via his La Tortue magazine, which is distributed in 25 countries.
The article below is written by Bernard after he visited TCC in May 2010 and is published in the September 2010 issue of La Tortue.
Bernard was kind enough to provide a short translation to the article above:
… Bernard Devaux was met by Chan Eng Heng and her colleague Chen Pelf Nyok, and we headed for Mangkok, to see the work the two scientists had been doing on two very unusual and relatively threatened turtles, Batagur affinis and Batagur borneoensis. Turtle Conservation Centre is a small but attractive traditional wooden building on stilts. Visiting Malays and tourists can tour a small, beautifully arranged museum and see the conservation work the team is doing. The problem is that for many years, the villagers have been eating the eggs of these species. The idea of TCC is to counter this, saving the eggs by buying them from fishermen and egg collectors. The eggs are then incubated and the juveniles released into the wild. This helps preserve the two species. We helped Chan in her work with a fisherman who brought her turtles collected from the river. The turtles were marked, weighed, then immediately released. In this way, the fisherman earns a living, while the turtles are spared. It’s good work for the locals and the only employment available in the area since the villagers are accustomed to use the turtles for both food and earn a little cash…
About Bernard Devaux – In 1986, Bernard created the SOPTOM association (Station d’Observation et de Protection des Tortues et de leurs Milieux) [Station for the Observation and Protection of Turtles and their Habitats] in order to study and protect the Hermann’s tortoise (Testudo hermanni). He then created the Village des Tortues (Turtle Village) in Gonfaron in southern France in 1988. The idea was to finance conservation by opening a visitor center that was not only scientific but also accessible to the public. Spurred on by the success of the concept, he opened the first Turtle Clinic in Europe (1989) followed by other Turtle Villages in Corsica (at Moltifao in 1992), Senegal (at Noflaye in 1995), and Madagascar (at Ifaty in 2003).
