{"id":66121,"date":"2024-08-08T22:00:08","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/article\/2024\/aug\/08\/sri-lanka-sea-turtle-nesting-conservation-development-poaching-illegal-hatcheries-tourist-industry"},"modified":"2024-08-08T22:00:08","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T13:00:08","slug":"its-nice-to-help-a-life-to-live-meet-sri-lankas-turtle-guardians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=66121","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s nice to help a life to live\u2019: meet Sri Lanka\u2019s turtle guardians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Volunteers are helping save baby sea turtles as the endangered species\u2019 favourite nesting spots come under pressure from development, poaching and tourists<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Photographs by Thilina Kaluthotage<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It\u2019s a sweltering night on the western coast of Sri Lanka, and on Mount Lavinia beach there\u2019s an unusual flurry of activity. Several young people in orange hi-vis vests are squatting in a circle, digging in the sand in the semi-darkness.<\/p>\n<p>The team of volunteers is patrolling a popular tourist beach on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka\u2019s capital, scouting for turtle nesting sites. Finding the nests can involve a bit of detective work.<\/p>\n<p>Turtle volunteers at a nesting site on Colombo\u2019s Mount Lavinia beach. \u2018Sometimes we dig holes on the beach to look for the eggs\u2019<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/article\/2024\/aug\/08\/sri-lanka-sea-turtle-nesting-conservation-development-poaching-illegal-hatcheries-tourist-industry\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Volunteers are helping save baby sea turtles as the endangered species\u2019 favourite nesting spots come under pressure from development, poaching and touristsPhotographs by Thilina KaluthotageIt\u2019s a sweltering night on the western coast of Sri Lanka, and &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4373,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[265,453,2437,456,1089,65,59,468,61,674,527,2436,94,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-asia","category-coastlines","category-conservation","category-endangered-habitats","category-environment","category-global-development","category-marine-life","category-south-and-central-asia","category-sri-lanka","category-travel","category-travel-and-transport","category-wildlife","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4373"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66122,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66121\/revisions\/66122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}