Govt. of India and UNDP Sea Turtle Project: A significant proportion of world’s Olive Ridley Turtle population migrate every winter to Indian coastal waters for nesting mainly at eastern coast. With the objective of conservation of olive ridley turtles and other endangered marine turtles. Ministry of Environment & Forests initiated the Sea Turtle Conservation Project in collaboration of UNDP in November, 1999 with Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun as the Implementing Agency. The project is being implemented in 10 coastal States of the country with special emphasis in State of Orissa. Total financial allocation for the project is Rs.1.29 crores. The project has helped in preparation of inventory map of breeding sites of Sea Turtles, identification of nesting and breeding habitats along the shore line, and migratory routes taken by Sea Turtles, development of guidelines to safeguard and minimise turtle mortality, development of national and international cooperative and collaborative action for Sea Turtle Conservation, developing guideline plans for tourism in sea turtle areas and developing infrastructure and human resources for Sea Turtle Conservation. One of the important achievements have been demonstration of use of Satellite Telemetry to locate the migratory route of Olive Ridley Turtles in the sea and sensitizing the fishermen and State Government for the use of Turtle Exclusive Devise (TED) in fishing trawlers to check turtle mortality in fishing net.
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