Mostly, once a week we, from the Sea Turtle Conservation program (STC), drive to one of the fisherman community’s here in the area of Kundapur. Meeting the fishermen is one of the most interesting tasks in our voluntary work. There we have the opportunity to talk with the fishermen about different problems e.g.the waste problem or overfishing that affect the fishermen as well as the sea turtles.

The visit of the community is so important because we can learn from each other. We present our project to the fishermen and explain to them why sea turtles are so important for the ecosystem of the oceans and how they can benefit from protecting the sea turtles, because the food staple of the sea turtles are jellyfishes, they have a direct influence of their population.  Jellyfishes in turn are eating fish, consequently caused a rising sea turtle population an increase of the fish population.

We see that the fishermen are motivated to engage themselves for the environment but on the other hand they have to secure their families too. A good example is the harbour that had been constructed by the government, because of the wish of the fishermen. It was misconstructed so that the costal erosion started. Once they lived one kilometre away from the ocean and now the sea is directly in front of them, so the government had installed wave breakers. On one hand the fishermen noticed that this is not good for the sea turtles, because they cannot nest at those beaches and they also know that this will have an effect to the population of sea turtles and in result to the population of fish, but in the other hand their homes are in danger, because the sea is going forward.

Another huge problem is the deep fishing by trawlers, which cause overfishing and the death of many sea turtles. In their eyes, a solution would be to forbid the deep fishing. The fishermen told us, that they have already contacted the government and protested against trawlers for years, without any success.      

In exchange, we learn a lot about fishing, the lifestyle of the fishermen and we can discuss together, how all the environmental problems could be solved. The support of the fishermen is pretty important for our project, they can call us when they see sea turtle eggs on the beach or when they find an injured turtle. We, from the sea turtle conservation program, can benefit from the experiences of the fishermen. They can tell us about the developments of the population of the fishes and jellyfishes, which are an indicator for the sea turtle population in this area.

In the end the fishermen visit is not only a knowledge exchange but also an intercultural exchange, we learn a lot about their lifestyle and sometimes we talk about our countries and their cultural differences and similarities.