SPECIAL REPORT: Protecting the sea turtles of Mati
1st of 2 parts
CITY OF MATI, Davao Oriental (MindaNews / 22 Oct) — Just before dawn on a Saturday, Winston Plaza brings out his flashlight and patrols the shoreline of Barangay Dahican in a slow zigzag manner hoping to see in the sand a nesting mother turtle.
Winston crouches over a dark, circular pit the size of a basin. The sand is soft and damp, the telltale sign of a fresh nest.
He then slowly scrapes off the site with a driftwood to gather the eggs and transfer it to the hatchery nearby — a makeshift fence made up of driftwood and nets to mark off the site — before the sun crowds the beach with picnickers, skimboarders and surfers.
Winston explains his work has become as much a part of Dahican mornings as the first sets of waves roll into shore.
For him, protecting turtles means protecting the sea that also feeds people.
Winston is one of the founding fathers of Amihan sa Dahican-Balod sa Paglaum (common called by its shorter name, just “Amihan”), a homegrown crew of surfers and skimboarders who turned their love of the sea into a citizen-led mission: keep endangered marine turtles — or locally known as pawikan — coming back.
Skimboarders to pawikan guardians
Dahican Beach is a seven-kilometer stretch of white sand in the City of Mati.
A 10-15-minute cab ride from the town center, passing through several resorts, is home for Amihan.
Established in 2004, Amihan is an environmental conservation group, named after “amihan,” the northeast monsoon, that dominates the area sometime in mid- to late October or November and ends sometime in March or early to mid-April.
But when the group started out, it was called the Amihan sa Dahican Skim and Surf Team — also known as the “Amihan Boys” — composed of young homegrown skimboarders which eventually positioned Dahican to be touted as the “Skimboarding Capital of Mindanao.” One of the Plaza brothers, George (aka “Jun”), founded the group.
The vast ocean — Dahican being directly facing the Pacific Ocean — was their classroom and playground.
Pedro Plaza, the current president of Amihan, said that tourism followed when skimboarding gained traction. “Skimboarders come here because of the great waves that [Dahican] offers,” Pedro said.
On good days, the waves can go up to 7-8 feet. But on other days it can only be at 4-5 feet, which is still good, notes Pedro.
Over time, chance encounters with nesting turtles have turned Dahican from being a skimboarding site into a place of stewardship of marine preservation.
It was in 2008 when Amihan released the first batch of green and olive ridley sea turtles and established its campaign for turtle conservation.
“We used to think conservation was only for scientists. Then we realized the turtles were landing in our front yard. So, whose job was it, really?” Pedro said.
He pointed out they were the first ones to be trained in Mati on marine wildlife conservation by experts of the national office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
In 2013, Amihan was chosen as a partner of the DENR–Global Environmental Facility/Asian Development Bank Integrated Coastal Resource Management Project (ICRMP).
As part of the project, Amihan was trained by national experts in marine turtle handling (recording the number of nesting turtles, turtle eggs and hatchlings), hatchery management, treating of injuries/rescue operations of strandings, and in handling other marine wildlife.
But even before the ICRMP, Amihan had been doing conservation through out-of-pocket expenses.
Dynamite fishers
Long before they released the first turtles in 2008, the Plaza brothers were dynamite fishers who followed their late father’s destructive fishing method with the use of explosives.
Winston shared that their father feared no one and exploited the marine life of Mayo Bay, the one facing Dahican Beach, and even Pujada Bay on the other side of the Guang-guang Peninsula.
“Admittedly, we used to be the destroyers of the corals,” Winston adds.
When they were young, Winston recalls their father would instruct them to swim 50 meters away from the shore and bring dynamites with them. They would then submerge the dynamites, rush back to a safe distance, and wait for the explosion.
“The amount of fish that dies from the dynamite explosion would be so massive that it would take us an entire day, and even reach the next day, to collect them all,” he said.
Winston said it was their father’s death in 1993 due to tetanus because of an injury related to dynamite fishing that changed the brothers’ methods. “We realized it was time to change our ways,” he added.
Refuge for endangered pawikans
Barangay Dahican is not only known for its white sand beach or as the skimboarding capital of the south, but also for the marine species under its crystal-clear waters.
Winston noted that the name Dahican is derived from the local word “dahik” (which means to come in from the sea), and thus also refers to the turtles coming to its shores to nest.
More than the skimboarding events, Dahican is equally important as a breeding ground for turtles.
The Philippines is home to five of the seven sea turtle species worldwide: green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas), hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata), loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta), leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), and olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea).
Three of which have been found frequenting Dahican’s shoreline to nest: green sea turtle, hawksbill turtle, and olive ridley.
Tragically, these species are listed under the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.
The green turtle was listed as “endangered” in that list in 2004. Hawksbill turtle, meanwhile, was added as among the “critically endangered” in 2008.
According to IUCN, green turtles, like other sea turtle species, are particularly susceptible to population declines because of their vulnerability to impacts of human activities during all life-stages: from eggs to adults.
Considered most detrimental among human activities is the intentional harvest of eggs and adults from nesting beaches, and juveniles and adults from foraging grounds.
Threats to hawksbill, as IUCN noted, include tortoise shell trade, egg collection, slaughter for meat, and destruction of nesting and foraging habitat. Degradation of both nesting beach habitat and marine habitats also play a role in the decline.
The olive ridley turtle, on the other hand, was classified as “vulnerable” in the IUCN list in 2008.
IUCN noted that like other long-lived species, olive ridleys are prone to population decline because of slow intrinsic growth rate in combination with the impact of human activities which can accumulate over a protracted development through various life stages, multiple habitats (nesting beaches, migratory routes and pelagic foraging zones) and vast geographic expanses.
In the Philippine setting, DENR Administrative Order 2019-09 or the Updated List of Threatened Philippine Fauna and their Categories also listed the three species: green turtle and olive ridley as “endangered,” and hawksbill turtle as “critically endangered.”
DENR defines critically endangered species as those that are facing extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the immediate future and presumed extinct species upon rediscovery of a population of such a group shall be automatically categorized as critically endangered.
Meanwhile, endangered species refer to species that are not critically endangered whose survival in the wild is unlikely if causal factors continue operating.
Winston emphasized the conservation of these endangered species is deemed equally important to keeping the skimboarding and surfing activities alive, and tourism, too.
“Protecting the environment is never-ending as it also provides us with never-ending blessings,” Winston said.
In peril they persist
In May 21, 2024, the two-decade-old watchtower and hatchery built by Amihan, the very reason they sustained their turtle conservation initiative, was demolished.
The local government, through the city administrator, sent notices to Amihan on May 3 addressed to Pedro Plaza to vacate the area. But Amihan refused since vacating would mean the pawikans would be endangered.
The letter asked the group to dismantle the structure and transfer it to the Menzi Information Center, which is located in a property leased by the LGU, supposedly for a safer and more orderly environment for the turtles and to be away from public disturbance as it was located along the public access road.
The demolition order was to give way for the construction of the substation of the Task Force Mati Shoreline Management, which will consist of the Philippine Coast Guard, Mati Tourist Police, Philippine Maritime Police, Bantay Dagat, Bureau of Fish and Aquatic Resources, and other agencies tasked to protect Dahican Beach patrons and swimmers.
The Plaza brothers, however, stood ground that the hatchery should not be transferred anywhere as it has been there for more than two decades.
“The hatchery is already proven and tested, the hatching rate is around 98-99%,” said Mark Bacalso, member of the board of Amihan, in an interview with MindaNews during a field visit last July. He is husband of Eden Plaza, one of the Plaza siblings behind the group.
“We have released a lot of hatchlings. Those who survived, by the book, will return here to lay their eggs. If the hatchery will be transferred, where will they go?” asked Bacalso.
Turtles return to where they were birthed
Romeo Trono, who led the Pawikan Conservation Project of the DENR in the Turtle Islands located in the Sulu Sea in the Philippines’ southwestern tip in 1982, said a turtle will return to where it hatched and released because of imprinting navigation.
Imprinting is the process whereby hatchlings impress on the beach or coastal area where they were hatched for the purpose of remembering where to return when they become reproductively ready to breed.
The Philippine Aquatic Wildlife Rescue and Response Manual Series, published by the Marine Wild Fauna Watch of the Philippines in cooperation with the Wildlife Resources Division of the DENR-Biodiversity Management Bureau, explained that hatchlings do not need assistance during emergence nor crawling across a stretch of beach to get to the sea as they have an innate vigor called “infantile frenzy” that uses reserved energy in the yolk remains, which propels them across the beach and through the surf.
Trono said that hatchlings imprint an innate process that lets them get a record of their birth place, which will allow them to migrate back to the same site (or general area) as adults when reproductively ready.
Within the first hour of emergence of the hatchling, its release to the ocean should be done as naturally as possible. “It is important that they be released as soon as they emerge from the eggs, as the infantile frenzy is greatly reduced afterwards,” Trono said.
He adds that the turtles do return to where they were hatched. He shared that in 2016, when he returned to Baguan Island, among those in the Turtle Islands, about 30 years after he led the conservation project whose main goal was to protect as many nesting mothers and release as many hatchlings, he was greeted with the same size class of turtle nesters.
“That’s more than 30 years already, just about the right time for them to return as nesting females. I believe that they will really return to their natal beach, although not in the exact location but they will return if they are ready to nest,” he stressed.
Trono said that following their conservation project, latest data in 2021 recorded a 700% increase of turtles in the area, with about 140 nesters per night.
The Philippine Turtle Islands include Boan, Langaan, Lihiman, Great Bakkungan, Taganak and Baguan. Of the six islands, only Baguan is fully protected, having been declared a marine sanctuary through legislation in 1982.
“When the pawikan is gone, the integrity of the ecosystem is compromised. We don’t want that to happen because the ecosystem basically provides us ecosystem services such as food security, tourism, protection from impacts of climate,” Trono added.
For turtles to come in from the sea
Even though their watchtower and hatcherywas demolished in 2024, Amihan continues to do what its members have been doing, such as coastal clean-up, night patrols, and briefing guests on the importance of turtle conservation.
Armed with a wooden stick, a pail and a flashlight, Winston said during our night patrol by the shoreline that for over 20 years, he has familiarized the coordinates of the beach and could easily spot a nesting site favored by a mother pawikan.
Winston, along with other volunteers, would patrol the beaches every night, from 8 p.m. onwards with a 30-minute interval to monitor traces of mother turtles laying eggs.
In the months of October-May, it is the season for an olive ridley turtle; while May-September is for green turtle and hawksbill.
Winston said when they find a mother pawikan laying her eggs, they would wait for it to leave the nest. If the pawikan moves away from the nest, that’s the time they will put a tag on the pawikan for monitoring.
Mother pawikans bury their eggs in the sand and leave them to hatch on their own.
Then they will guide the mother pawikan back to the sea, and proceed to collect the eggs and transfer them to their hatchery for protection from human activities and predators such as birds, crabs and domesticated animals.
“Every mother pawikan can lay up to 120 eggs. So far that’s the largest number we have recorded,” Winston said. “Every nest counts because when we lose turtles, we lose the balance of our marine ecosystems,” he added.
The team will then monitor the eggs and wait for approximately 45-60 days for them to hatch. Since their original hatchery was demolished in 2024, Amihan built another hatchery to house the turtle eggs.
Winston noted that over the two decades of their initiatives, the sighting occurrences and nesting sites have increased over time, meaning, the turtles have returned to lay their eggs back to where they were birthed.
A paper published in the Davao Research Journal in December 2019 entitled “A survey of marine turtles found in Davao Oriental, Philippines” conducted by Lea A. Jimenez, director of the Davao Oriental State University (DORSU) Regional Integrated Coastal Resources Management Center XI, and Marlo Khen D. Inabiogan studied the status of turtles in the area.
The study, which involved land-based monitoring for the status of turtles from January 2014 to December 2016 in Mayo Bay, revealed that an additional species — the leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) — was added to the previous three initially sighted to be frequenting the bay. But it was sighted only once throughout the duration of the study.
Nevertheless, from 2014 to 2016, the most frequently sighted species was the green sea turtle, with 121 occurrences. The olive ridley ranked second, with 105 sightings; followed by the hawksbill turtle, with 35.
The study was also able to profile nesting areas in the bay — 17 were identified from Barangay Dahican stretching up to Barangay Mayo.
Green sea turtles and olive ridleys were identified as the prominent nesters in the area, while hawksbill turtles recorded only two nesting sites.
The study also revealed that in 2014, the green sea turtle laid a total of 376 eggs, of which 292 were hatched and released with a successful hatching rate of 77.70%. Meanwhile, the olive ridley had the highest nesting record with a total of 2,967 eggs laid, of which 2,486 were hatched and released with a hatching percentage of 83.18%.
The olive ridley laid a total of 1,892 eggs in 2015, and 691 were recorded in 2016, with the highest successful hatching rate of 85.14%.
Meanwhile, in Amihan’s consolidated data from 2008 to 2023, the group claimed to have released 105,000 baby turtles.
From October 2023 to July 2024, the group 8,936 turtle eggs; while in October 2024-June 2025, they were able to collect a total of 20,260 eggs.
This story is published with the support of Canal France International under the Media for One Health program.
Tomorrow: Why existence of turtles matters
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