Decades of conservation efforts have finally paid off for the green turtle, whose status has changed from “endangered” to “least concern.”<\/p>\n
Humans have historically hunted green turtles for their meat, eggs, and shells, threatening their populations. However, thanks to decades of conservation efforts \u2014 including protecting turtle nesting sites and releasing hatchlings into the sea \u2014 the global green turtle population is rebounding, according to the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n “We must use this win as a catalyst to achieve numerous other wins,” Dr. Nicolas Pilcher of Malaysia’s Marine Research Foundation told the BBC.<\/p>\n Countries around the world have taken steps to protect green turtles from hunting and ensure they don’t get stuck in fishing nets, leading to a 28% increase in their population since the 1970s, as Mongabay<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n That’s great news for these plant-eating turtles<\/a>, whose representations in pop culture include Crush from “Finding Nemo.” It’s also good news for marine ecosystems, which benefit from a healthy and diverse array of organisms.<\/p>\n Conservation efforts also benefit humans, as thriving ecosystems strengthen economies, contribute to medicine, and provide a respite for people who enjoy relaxing in nature.<\/p>\n Turtles aren’t the only creatures benefiting from conservation efforts. The vaquita porpoise has surfaced in the Gulf of California, Partula snails have returned to French Polynesia, and the gray wolf has been spotted in California, showing that efforts to protect a species often bear fruit.<\/p>\n More than 170,000 species<\/a> have been assessed for the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List, but there is still much work to be done. Still, turtle experts are taking the opportunity to celebrate the win.<\/p>\n “I am delighted,” Brendan Godley, a conservation scientist and turtle expert from the University of Exeter, told Mongabay. “It underlines that marine conservation can work, there is hope, and we should rightly celebrate it, sharing some ocean optimism.”<\/p>\n Join our free newsletter<\/a> for good news and useful tips, and don’t miss this cool list<\/a> of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Decades of conservation efforts have finally paid off for the green turtle, whose status has changed from “endangered”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[11954,49622,2403,85841,90978,111,139,90979,69,147,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-132411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-conservation-efforts","9":"tag-green-turtle","10":"tag-marine-conservation","11":"tag-marine-ecosystems","12":"tag-marine-research-foundation","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nicolas-pilcher","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}