The Age of Union Al­liance has an­nounced that they have do­nat­ed USD $1.5 mil­lion to Na­ture Seek­ers, a non-prof­it com­mu­ni­ty-based or­ga­ni­za­tion in the vil­lage of Matu­ra, on the east coast of Trinidad. De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease...

The do­na­tion will be in­stru­men­tal in help­ing Na­ture Seek­ers pro­tect the an­cient, en­dan­gered leatherback tur­tles nest­ing in Trinidad 

Age of Union Al­liance, led by tech leader and en­vi­ron­men­tal ac­tivist Dax Dasil­va, is proud to an­nounce a USD $1.5 mil­lion do­na­tion to Na­ture Seek­ers, a non-prof­it com­mu­ni­ty-based or­ga­ni­za­tion in the vil­lage of Matu­ra, on the east coast of Trinidad, with a fo­cus on the con­ser­va­tion and pro­tec­tion of sea tur­tles. This will be the sin­gle largest pri­vate do­na­tion in Na­ture Seek­ers’ his­to­ry. Age of Union’s sup­port will be in­stru­men­tal in the pro­tec­tion of en­dan­gered leatherback tur­tles whose nest­ing grounds on Matu­ra Beach are in more dan­ger than ever be­fore due to cli­mate change and pol­lu­tion.

Matu­ra Beach is one of the last re­main­ing ma­jor tur­tle nest­ing sites in the world for leatherback tur­tles, which have ex­ist­ed for over 100 mil­lion years, dat­ing back to the age of di­nosaurs. These mas­sive crea­tures, as long as 2.2 me­tres, are the largest sea tur­tle species in the world and al­so one of the most mi­gra­to­ry, cross­ing the At­lantic Ocean. New GPS tech­nol­o­gy has al­lowed sci­en­tists to track their jour­neys, and many have mi­grat­ed to Cana­da’s At­lantic coasts in re­cent years where they feed on the abun­dant jel­ly­fish every sum­mer and fall. 

The pop­u­la­tion of these tur­tles has de­clined dras­ti­cal­ly in the last cen­tu­ry as a re­sult of in­tense egg col­lec­tion, poach­ing, fish­ery by­catch, habi­tat loss, cli­mate change, and much more. They are list­ed as Vul­ner­a­ble on In­ter­na­tion­al Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Na­ture's red list of Threat­ened Species. Na­ture Seek­ers, who have been work­ing to con­serve these tur­tles for over 30 years, were in des­per­ate need of help af­ter beach clo­sures dur­ing the pan­dem­ic near­ly erad­i­cat­ed their his­tor­i­cal rev­enue sources. 

Age of Union’s funds will help Na­ture Seek­ers:

●       Pa­trol and pro­tect the nest­ing site through­out the an­nu­al sea­son to main­tain or in­crease the sur­vival rates of both adult and hatch­ling leatherback tur­tles. New drone tech­nol­o­gy will now ex­tend their ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

●       Col­lect da­ta dur­ing nest­ing sea­son to bet­ter un­der­stand the phys­i­cal health of the nest­ing pop­u­la­tion and mon­i­tor in­ter-nest­ing move­ment and mi­gra­tion of satel­lite-tagged tur­tles. This work is done in part­ner­ship with Dr. Michael James of Fish­eries and Oceans Cana­da and the Cana­di­an Sea Tur­tle Net­work.

●       Col­lect da­ta and as­sess the po­ten­tial im­pacts of cli­mate change on the tur­tle pop­u­la­tion at the Matu­ra nest­ing site; cre­ate cli­mate adap­ta­tion and/or mit­i­ga­tion plans.

●       De­sign and de­ploy ar­ti­fi­cial hatch­eries to pro­mote the sur­vival of at-risk nests and al­low for the col­lec­tion of new da­ta sets.

●       In­crease com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment and pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for sus­tain­able liveli­hood ac­tiv­i­ties that align with con­ser­va­tion goals, such as be­com­ing a ranger to pa­trol the beach dur­ing nest­ing sea­son.

This marks the ninth con­ser­va­tion project Age of Union has an­nounced in less than one year fol­low­ing Dax Dasil­va’s ini­tial pledge of $40 mil­lion. To­day’s an­nounce­ment al­so aligns with Age of Union’s glob­al pre­miere of its short doc­u­men­tary film CAUGHT in Toron­to on the evening of Sep­tem­ber 12. In part­ner­ship with Sea Shep­herd, this film re­veals the shock­ing con­se­quences of in­dus­tri­al fish­ing and ex­cess con­sumerism, de­plet­ing ocean­ic ecosys­tems, with a spe­cif­ic lens on dol­phin by­catch off the coast of France.

Quotes:

“When I first met Suzan Bap­tiste, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor at Na­ture Seek­ers, I was in­cred­i­bly in­spired by her de­ter­mi­na­tion and per­se­ver­ance to help shift this coastal com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad from tur­tle poach­ing to tur­tle con­ser­va­tion. We hope with Age of Union’s help, Na­ture Seek­ers will now be bet­ter equipped to pro­tect these beau­ti­ful, en­dan­gered tur­tles who, through their in­cred­i­ble mi­gra­tion jour­neys, al­so have con­nec­tions to Cana­da.” - Dax Dasil­va, Founder of Age of Union.

“We couldn’t be more thank­ful for this gen­er­ous gift from Age of Union. Leatherback tur­tles are rec­og­nized as a key­stone species, and their demise could have glob­al con­se­quences on our oceans and their ecosys­tems. Now, with the help of Age of Union, these tur­tles have an amaz­ing chance for sur­vival.” - Suzan Bap­tiste, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Na­ture Seek­ers

“The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries looks for­ward to con­tin­ued con­ver­sa­tions with both the High Com­mis­sion of Cana­da and Mr. Dasil­va to im­prove the sec­tor and by ex­ten­sion Trinidad and To­ba­go.” - Kaz­im Ho­sein, Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries

“The Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go sin­cere­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the sup­port from Age of Union for their con­ser­va­tion ini­tia­tives in the coun­try. We com­mit to work­ing with Dax Dasil­va and his team, ex­plor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for broad­er col­lab­o­ra­tion in the en­vi­ron­men­tal and tech­nol­o­gy sec­tors and be­yond.” - Sen­a­tor Dr. Amery Browne, Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs of Trinidad and To­ba­go

“Age of Union’s con­ser­va­tion project for leatherback tur­tles is an ex­cel­lent ex­am­ple of Cana­da Trin­bag­on­ian co­op­er­a­tion on en­vi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion.” - Ku­mar Gup­ta, High Com­mis­sion­er of Cana­da to Trinidad and To­ba­go

About Age of Union Al­liance

Age of Union is a non-prof­it en­vi­ron­men­tal al­liance that sup­ports and makes vis­i­ble a glob­al com­mu­ni­ty of change­mak­ers work­ing on the ground to pro­tect the plan­et’s threat­ened species and ecosys­tems. Launched in Oc­to­ber 2021 by tech leader and en­vi­ron­men­tal ac­tivist Dax Dasil­va in Mon­tre­al, Cana­da with an ini­tial $40 mil­lion pledge, Age of Union seeks to ig­nite a flame with­in every per­son through con­ser­va­tion ef­forts that solve crit­i­cal en­vi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges around the world and in­spire high-im­pact change by show­ing the pos­i­tive im­pact that every in­di­vid­ual can make.

For more in­for­ma­tion, please vis­it: Age­o­fU­nion.com

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About Na­ture Seek­ers

Na­ture Seek­ers is a non-prof­it com­mu­ni­ty-based or­ga­ni­za­tion found­ed in 1990 and sit­u­at­ed in the vil­lage of Matu­ra, on the east coast of Trinidad in the south Caribbean. Its pri­ma­ry fo­cus is the con­ser­va­tion and pro­tec­tion of the sea tur­tles that nest in the re­gion, in­clud­ing the Leatherback tur­tle. Over a 30+ year pe­ri­od, Na­ture Seek­ers helped to shift this coastal com­mu­ni­ty from tur­tle poach­ing to tur­tle con­ser­va­tion.