Although a few fishers reported sea turtles are captured year-round, most reported that turtles are captured only during the dry season from November through May.

The key informants are community leaders within the traditional authority of the area. Although sample size per village is small, each fishing village utilizes between 12 and 20 boats so we are confident that our sample reflects the activities of the artisanal fishery in each village.Each respondent was assured of their anonymity in participating in the project, and was asked to sign a consent form to verify their willingness to contribute. Traditionally, modern ecosystem management has been driven via a scientific or conservation ethic. Descriptive statistics are presented to identify trends within, and among, fishing communities and to provide accounts of discrepancies across the research topics. I’ll confess to enjoying a cool patch of lush, green, newly mown grass on a summer day, knowing that the non-native turf relies on fertilizer and groundwater. Interviews were conducted simultaneously within each village to ensure each respondent fished on a different boat, and therefore acquiring independent samples. The term “taboo” is derived from the Polynesian term “tabu,” which means “forbidden.” Taboos regulate the way people interact with the world around them by prohibiting the use of items considered sacred. Although not directly tested, the protection of sea turtles in Winneba and Ada are likely driven by the taboo, instead of GWD presence, because sea turtle education programs and legal enforcement had not been conducted in Winneba prior to this study. How wonderfully ironic that the most liberal religion might be the context to sustain this rather conservative notion. An online columnist for LA finalized the interview questionnaires and helped conduct the study. More recent efforts to engage local people with community-based sea turtle conservation programs have been based primarily on economic incentives and less on cultural and social traditions. Our survey questions did not allow us to adequately explore the rate of sea turtle capture, but most fishers indicated that catching a sea turtle is not common. The semi-structured interview design (Fishers were selected for the study using non-probability convenience sampling and snowball sampling. The shoe/foot is the unclean part of your body. But if we have “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part,” then maybe there is a sense in which expressing joy for the ephemeral fruits of global warming is morally problematical, even taboo, for those who profess an abiding concern for the natural world.Taboo has applications beyond delighting in a balmy day in February.

The GWD officers routinely conduct sea turtle education, ecotourism, and law enforcement activities in the area. In many African countries when talking to a tribal chief, make sure that your head is not above his.

Such approaches have proven useful for identifying trends using similar data structure (Ghana's artisanal fishery primarily operates through the use of purse seine nets that are deployed from fishing boats in near-shore waters immediately adjacent to the crew's home fishing village. If you want to make thi… Fishers in Cape Coast, Ghana accepted a recent government fishing closure of the Fosu Lagoon because traditional practices already reduced fishing efforts in the lagoon.

Advances in the Biology and Conservation of Marine Turtles

We selected only fishers for this study because they have more direct interactions with sea turtles and are considered a primary stakeholder when promoting sea turtle conservation in the region. Supplementary As suggested above, the importance of language differences cannot be overemphasized, and there are nearly three thousand languages in the world.

AA wrote small portions of the manuscript but provided important review and editorial adjustments.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.The authors would like to thank the fishers, elders, decision makers, and chiefs of Akwidaa, Winneba, Azizenya, and Totope for speaking to the researchers about their culture and knowledge of sea turtles. In the absence of GWD officers in the area, the fishers' interest in sea turtle conservation was limited to requests made by the eco-lodge owners.Ghana's sea turtle taboo has likely reduced mortality in some areas as sea turtle by-catch was reported by most respondents, but a significant number across all sites indicated that captured turtles are released from the net. The GWD office in Winneba only recently began sea turtle education and law enforcement programs. Furthermore, the GWD has routinely conducted sea turtle education programs in the Ada region for 20 years before this study. The village is comprised of Nzima people from the original Akan ethnic group that migrated across the Sahara Desert in the eleventh century (Winneba is located within the Central region at 5°19′60N and 0°37′0W, and is the capital of the Effutu Municipal district. Fishers in Winneba understand the taboo as a cultural norm recognizing sea turtles for saving their fisher ancestors who were lost at sea. Ghana is a culturally diverse country where local traditions have shown to improve protection for primates, crocodiles, and many bird species. Culture's role in environmental change The live and digital work of the cultural and creative industries is key to a low carbon transition and future, says Hannah Rudman