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Talking turtles – Report on the 32nd International Sea Turtle Symposium

The International Sea Turtle Symposium (ISTS) is an annual event organized by the International Sea Turtle Society that gathers participants from around the world, from across different disciplines and cultures to a common platform that is the sea turtle conservation. The symposium is a perfect place to initiate a debate and to share knowledge, research techniques and studies in conservation of sea turtles. Moreover, ISTS is a perfect place to address inevitable questions in biology and conservation of sea turtles and their habitats. This year for the first time, HEPCA took part in the event now reaching its 32nd anniversary. It was held in Huatulco, Mexico. The ISTS 32 focused on innovative aspects of sea turtle conservation: new techniques, new approaches and new actors. Furthermore the ISTS named the year of 2012 as the “Time for Innovation”. The HEPCA team was invited to the symposium to present two assignments: a poster about sea turtle nesting along the Egyptian Red Sea coast and an oral presentation on abundance and distribution of green and hawksbill turtles in their feeding grounds. The poster on the nesting sites caused a lot of curiosity, the most common question/comment being “Do you have nestings in Egypt? Really?”. Many positive comments and feedbacks came after the presentation on our work in the feeding grounds, especially concerning the commitment of the dive centers that are supporting our TurtleWatch project and who we are particularly grateful for! The symposium was not only a great occasion to present our work in the Egyptian Red Sea and finally put Egypt on the map, but it was also the perfect time to connect with people and international institutions working on similar topics and facing similar challenges. As almost nothing is known about marine turtles in the Red Sea, there was a lot of interest in knowing more and we are confident that many partnerships will start in the near future.