Mission

While officially founded in 2014, the non-profit organisation “Conservation des Espèces Marines”, or CEM, began efforts in the 1990s following the discovery of nesting sea turtles on beaches of the Ivorian south-west coast, and in particular in the Bas-Sassandra district.

At that time, local communities were involved in poaching these animals and collecting the eggs for consumption or for sale without understanding how vulnerable these species are and the importance of these nesting sites in their life cycle. We therefore started working with these communities to protect turtles and their habitat while providing support for local sustainable development in harmony with the environment.

We are now supported by a range of local and international partners, by the regional and national authorities, and by the local communities to:

·       Protect marine and coastal ecosystems, including mangroves, estuaries and river mouths

·       Support the involvement of local communities in conservation and sustainable development

The team

Full name: José Gómez Peñate, born in 1967 in Spain, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine in 1992 by the Complutense University of Madrid, I moved to the Ivory Coast in October 1993. In October 1997, while on holiday in Sassandra in the west of the Ivory Coast, I saw a leatherback turtle that had been caught by fishermen. It was in the fishing port of Sassandra, right in the middle of town, just waiting to be killed and skinned along with the other catches of the day, which included swordfish, hammerhead sharks and lots and lots of fish. I wondered how this was possible, that no protection measures existed despite the fact that marine turtles are classified as a protected species internationally and nationally.

A few days later, the scene was repeated on Monogaga beach: the fishermen had caught a large adult turtle, this time an olive ridley, and were ready to kill it.

Following this, I tried to find support to learn more about the status of these species; in the literature a few notes were made about their supposed presence in Ivory Coast but nothing concrete. I contacted potential donors, but did not I get a positive response anywhere. Abroad I contacted Jacques Fretey (a French sea turtle expert), who told me what should be done.

One major event was holding the Symposium on the Conservation of Marine Turtles of the Atlantic Coast of West Africa in Abidjan in June 1999. Thanks to this symposium I met Angela Formia, the person who has really helped CEM so far, and also Jacques Fretey whose main contribution was that he organised a week-long tour of the coast, accompanied by Angela, some people from the Ministry of the Environment (including Akoua Kouadio the manatee expert who died a few years ago) and myself, and so he was able to determine that the beaches around the mouth of the Dodo River were the best sea turtle nesting site in Côte d'Ivoire with a non-negligible, but not extraordinary, number of turtles. This discovery gave me new strength and I was finally able to get funding at the beginning of 2001 from the UNDP/GEF Small Grants Programme, led by Mr. N'Guessan Cyriaque, but always thanks to Angela who gave me the points I needed to include in the project.

With this funding we were able to start studying the status of sea turtles in the south-western area of Côte d'Ivoire. Two Master’s degree students who carried out their research work on sea turtles with a view to obtaining their diploma were recruited, one based in Mani and the other in the village of Soublaké near Tabou. Both had motorcycles and full biomonitoring equipment thanks to the project.

When I arrived in Grand Béréby to start the project, expectations were not high and everyone I met predicted a resounding failure given the difficulty of changing people's behaviour. We therefore limited ourselves at first to observing and recording the interactions between humans and turtles, and when we were the first to arrive at a turtle, we let it go (the turtle belonged to the one who found it). Grand Béréby at that time had a rather sad appearance, especially the Baie des Sirènes was already almost closed after a series of coups d'état with political instability, which meant that tourism was in slow motion.

The main witnesses of what was done those years (the funding lasted three egg-laying seasons) besides me are: Simon Amoh of Bérébeach (+225 08 29 90 99) and of course the two students Sory Bamba (+225 05 47 43 75) and Dr Karamoko Mamadou who has already passed away. Among the poachers of that time, Clément Tabley Hou was already active and started to collaborate with the Bamba Sory student. As for the socio-economic level in the villages, there was a lot of poverty. It seems to me that turtle hunting did nothing to enrich the populations. Rubber tree cultivation was in its infancy; at that time everyone still had their own plot of land to grow rice, etc. The people were very poor, and there was a lot of poverty in the villages. In Mani, apart from one person (the old GBA Kla Felix Kla Felix, known as Anyaman, now deceased, who made a living only by hunting turtles and gathering the products found on the beach), poaching was practised sporadically by almost everyone, including women. The same was true on the other side of the beach, in Pitiké and Kablaké. When you went out on the beach at night, you could come across three or four people looking for turtles. The atmosphere was by no means aggressive.

I tried to go once a month from Abidjan for a week during the laying season. I would come to the Adjamé station in the morning, take the bus from the "Aicha ni Mory" company and I could arrive at Grand Béréby around 5-6 pm, even if sometimes we arrived at night. I rented a car from Simon Amoh and we would go and see the turtles until 2-3 o'clock in the morning and even beyond.

This turtle conservation project with UNDP GEF was not renewed in Grand Béréby, but in Jacqueville and Dassioko, which is why we had to stop our activities between 2005-2010. I tried to obtain funding without success. After several unsuccessful attempts since maybe 2006, it was in 2010 that FWS granted us our first grant of 25 000 USD to work the 2010-2011 nesting season thanks again to Angela's help. I applied again to the University in order to get a Master’s student and it was Alexandre Dah who was available. He came, stayed with one of the teachers in Mani, and started the work and this has been going on until today...because FWS continues to support us. The idea of creating a Marine Reserve was already present in our projects with FWS since the first project was approved in April 2010. This idea has gradually matured until we have reached the Marine Protected Area. We felt that it was possible because there was a big banner hanging in the offices of the DEPN talking about the government's desire to create MPAs.

Even in 2010, the mindset hadn't changed in Grand Béréby. Turtles were being killed everywhere and with impunity. We were still predicted to be a total failure. On the socio-economic side, even though the rubber plantations were already in production, there was no sign of improvement in the standard of living in the villages or in Grand Béréby.

With support from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), a programme to protect female turtles and nests and to raise awareness among communities living near sea turtle nesting sites was established. In order to encourage people to stop hunting turtles, initiatives aimed at improving living conditions have been developed with varying degrees of success in exchange for their renunciation of killing these turtles from now on, but better still, for their involvement in conservation actions for these animals.

Thus, we were able to endow several riverside communities with a drinking water supply system consisting of a solar pump, a water tower of about 20 m3 and 6 taps scattered throughout the villages. We approached the Orange Foundation, who agreed to work in the area with what they call a 'village project'. Roc has thus benefited from a dispensary with a well and a primary school with housing for the teachers and the nurse.

Other villages have benefited from solar electrification systems, solar lamps, school repairs, construction of community centres, cassava grinders, free medical consultation programmes and the donation of medicines. Not to mention that as of 2020, CEM employs 20 people for sea turtle work, 6 people for the conservation of the forest at the mouth of the Dodo River, in addition to 3 people working at our headquarters.

Thanks to these actions, an almost total decrease in the frequency of poaching has been observed in the area where the activities are carried out, which includes the coastal area most affected by sea turtle nesting (i.e. the portion of the coastline between Grand Béréby and Kablaké Wapo).

Turtle conservation committees have been set up as well as a night-time turtle monitoring system to protect the females that come to lay eggs, to ensure the protection of nests left on the beach and to ensure the release of hatchling turtles.

4 hatcheries have been built and the technical capacities of the Maritime Police have been strengthened to ensure increased surveillance of fishing ports and to release turtles caught in nets. In addition, a customary law relating to the protection of turtles has been drawn up in a participatory manner and validated by the relavent stakeholders.

During awareness-raising campaigns, we try to convince people that a living turtle can earn more than a dead one, particularly through eco-tourism. The project currently being implemented includes the development of eco-tourism activities linked to the turtles present on the beaches of the villages involved in the project. Within this framework, partnerships with tourist agencies and hotel establishments have been established so that the latter include visits to turtle nesting sites or the release of hatchling turtles in their tourist packages.

Finally, in 2015 the NGO CEM was born. Previously we worked under the dome of an NGO called SOS-Forêts. So that's 10 years of uninterrupted work in Grand Béréby. The consequence of our actions can be summed up by saying that thanks to the support of partners such as FWS, Rainforest Trust, Exeter University, CEM has been able to integrate the notion of conservation in the minds of the inhabitants of the area, i.e. conservation is now seen as a very feasible solution to improve living conditions, whereas previously in Grand Béréby, as everywhere else in Côte d'Ivoire, the only way to have a better life was to exploit as quickly as possible all the resources within its reach. There has been a remarkable change in mentality and behaviour in a large part of the population. It is all this that made it possible for Grand Béréby to be the first Marine Protected Area in Côte d'Ivoire and all the surrounding countries, and it seems to me that no other MPA is close to being created at least in the next few years (but this is only my point of view).

Full name: DAH Alexandre, born on 21/04/1982, I hold a Master's degree in Tropical Ecology, Animal option (study of sea turtles) from the University Félix Houphouët Boigny of Cocody since 2013. Today I am a PhD student in the same university with the theme of sea turtles. Holder of a D.U. (university degree) in Management of Protected Areas with the University of Senghor, I met José Gomez, in 2010, for studies on marine turtles for the Master’s degree. Thus, I arrived for the first time in Grand Béréby, in October 2010. With courage and determination we were able to work in this magnificent area, but with a high poaching rate. The highlight was after the post-electoral crisis of 2011, when a decision had to be made to be able to continue working in an area that was bruised by the crisis. The determination with which we initially worked (me and Clément Tabley Hou on about 20 kilometers between Dawa and Kablaké) in Mani and the encouragement of a few rare villagers, made me say that there was a chance to succeed. So from two we went to three, then six after adding the villages of Dawa, Pitiké and Kablaké in 2012. Today the team of technicians is more than 20 people, as José pointed out in his account thanks to the different partners.

During the 2012-2013 season, we have decided to be accompanied by the Maritime Police, through awareness raising, this intervention will help reduce poaching with social projects that will boost the conservation of these species. In 2014, CEM was created in order to better guide our objectives and be in control of the decisions to be taken.