Photograph: FUNDAÇÃO PRÍNCIPE. Retrieved from Forbes.com
Conservationists in Sao Tomé & Principe, a tiny, biodiverse African island nation are using “GPS in a bottle” to track the plastic pollution that plagues their shores.
The island of Príncipe formed 31 million years ago and its tropical forest is one of the most important bird conservation regions in Africa: 57% of the country’s 49 bird species are endemic according to the Convention on Biological Diversity — but its beaches are also key habitat for sea turtles.
Estrela Matilde, out-going executive director of Fundação Príncipe based on the island says that the NGO helped persuade a generation that it is no longer acceptable to consume turtle meat and advocated for the first marine protected area network in the country, but now turtles face a global threat: plastics.
“Despite our local efforts plastic from elsewhere is washed ashore daily: we find turtles with their system full of plastic every season and 25% of the videos collected from the 10 turtles we video-tagged showed plastic in the vital habitat of Principe’s coastal waters,” Matilde says.