Rekawa is a small, low-income fishing village on the south coast of Sri Lanka.

The nearby beach is one of Sri Lanka's most important green turtle rookeries.

Olive ridley and leatherback turtles also nest there, as well as the occasional hawksbill and loggerhead turtle.

Rekawa is a very beautiful village, unspoilt by tourism development.

When the Turtle Conservation Project (TCP) first arrived in Rekawa in 1993, 100% of the turtle eggs laid on the beach were illegally collected and sold in nearby towns by Rekawa village men.

In addition, coral was being mined by villagers from the offshore reefs and burned in kilns (below) to make lime for the construction industry. The illegal coral kilns were fuelled by wood illegally cut from the mangrove forests that surround the nearby Rekawa lagoon. 

Rekawa became the TCP's first project site in 1994. Working with the community, the TCP set-up English classes and community-based environmental awareness and conservation programmes, including mangrove rehabilitation around the lagoon (below).

In 1996, Rekawa became the site of Sri Lanka's first community-based marine turtle research and nest protection programme. At the outset,  the TCP worked with former village egg-collectors to protect turtle nests and partipate in turtle rookery monitoring with TCP research officers.

From the beginning the former egg collectors participated in English classes held in the village by TCP-recruited volunteer teachers from the UK and Europe. In time they became known as Nest Protectors and were trained as Government-registered tour guides with Sri Lanka Tourism Board ID cards (below). 

They formed their own organisation known as the Nature Friends of Rekawa (NFR) and the TCP helped the NFR establish a Turtle Watch tourism programme on Rekawa beach. Tourists from the nearby resorts are encouraged to come to Rekawa beach at night and pay to be guided on the beach to witness the spectacle of nesting turtles and emerging hatchlings.

This programme continues today and generates income for the former turtle egg collectors, and allows them to contribute to small-scale village development schemes such as bus halt construction (below), temple repair... 

...and school maintenance. 

To establish alternative income generation within Rekawa village, the TCP has initiated a community-based ornamental fish breeding scheme, whereby villagers are given a plastic-lined pond and fish stock to breed and sell back to the TCP.

...and they have also initiated a women's batik production group that makes batiks for sale to the tourists that visit Rekawa to see the turtles.

In 2006, 12 years after the project began and after tireless campaigning by the TCP and the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), Rekawa Beach was finally gazetted at Sri Lanka's first Wildlife Sanctuary for marine turtles. The declaration of the sanctuary was marked by the release of Manike by two Sri Lankan Government Ministers.

Now that the turtles, their nests and the nesting habitat are protected by the people and the law at Rekawa, through this satellite tagging project we hope to find out where the turtles that nest there spend the remaining 99.9% of their lives.

There is a long way to go before we know enough about Sri Lanka's turtles to keep them safe!