00:00Hi, I'm Pelf and I'm from Turtle Conservation Society of Malaysia.
00:04We are the winner of the Star Golden Hearts Award 2024.
00:21Working closely with the local community is a main component
00:25of the Turtle Conservation Society of Malaysia.
00:29We visited the society space at Kampung Pasir Gajah in Kemaman recently
00:33to see how they transformed the villages there into guardians of the endangered river terrapins.
00:39The guardians, or fondly referred as Geng Tuntung, conduct river patrols
00:44looking for terrapins trapped in fishing nets or wounded by hooks and other objects.
00:49They then bring the terrapins back to their centre for rehabilitation.
01:03They cover a stretch of five kilometres of the Kemaman River
01:07which they say is inhabited by approximately 235 adult river terrapins.
01:12The society's co-founder, Dr Chan Pelf Yoke, told us that the villagers' involvement
01:23and their regular patrols had saved many river terrapins.
01:27From day one, we wanted to involve the local communities because we wanted them to take
01:32ownership of the project. We wanted them to feel like they are a part of the conservation project
01:38and this is not something that a scientist comes into their village to do and then leave.
01:43We wanted to demonstrate to them that we are partners in conservation.
01:47One case that I remember very clearly is that when the patrol team went out into the river,
01:54they found a male river terrapin that got caught in a hook. It was a very big hook.
02:01We were fortunate that we were able to catch that in time,
02:04otherwise that male terrapin would have died.
02:07Between January and March, the terrapin guardians and the society's workers
02:11will also go to nesting banks along the river where they collect eggs laid by the female terrapins.
02:37We have been working on the conservation of river terrapins since 2011 and what we do is that we
02:56collect river terrapin eggs from nesting banks. We bring them back to a hatchery so that we can
03:03safely incubate the eggs and when these hatchlings emerge, we raise them for a few months before we
03:09release them into the Kemamang River. The society said through their engagement, educational and
03:15awareness programs, they have successfully educated local villagers who used to be terrapin
03:21egg poachers to protect the endangered reptiles. Over the past 13 years, their efforts have seen
03:27the incubation and release of over 5,000 terrapins back into the river. This year alone,
03:33they collected and incubated a record high of more than 1,500 eggs and they held their annual
03:39carnivore-like Terrapin Independence Day event where visitors and locals released 670 baby
03:45terrapins into the river on October 5th. This is significant to us because the river terrapins
03:51lay only about 25 to 35 eggs each time. So for us to be able to collect 1,500 eggs, that is
04:00quite a monumental effort. It is a day to show our appreciation to the local terrapin guardians
04:05who have been working so hard to collect these eggs and for us to incubate them. So it is a day
04:11for the orang kampung to come out and celebrate terrapins. Since 2019, local women have also been
04:18empowered through the Society's Creative Sewing Programme where they are paid to produce terrapin
04:23themed batik merchandise to be sold to visitors and online. The Society hopes to one day expand
04:29its operations and set up similar conservation centres elsewhere to protect populations of other
04:35critically endangered freshwater turtles. Happy 10th anniversary to the Star Golden Hearts Award!
04:48you
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