Francesca Winfield who lives in a small village called Bak Bak and a young man, Roland Agansai from another village, Bavang Jamal gathered a group of people with a common interest; those who care about the preservation of our marine environment, particularly on the protection of Malaysia's endangered sea turtle. Hereon, this group grew as a turtle conservation society with the objective to conserve Kudat's sea turtles and protecting their habitats. Acknowledging the good intentions of these society, WWF-Malaysia had given their support on realising their goals by helping them to get registered as a legal entity under the Registrar of Society (ROS) Sabah. Kudat Turtle Conservation Society was then officially established as a Non-Goverment Organisation on the 12th of January 2011. Since then, the number of members has grown as more coastal communities and businesses, namely tour operators in Kudat, have joined.
Top left: Ray and Fran; Top right: Roland Agansai (founders of KTCS)
Bottom: KTCS Members
The long term objective of KTCS is to establish at least 50 community turtle conservation areas within the largest multipurpose marine park in Malaysia, Tun Mustapha Park. To achieve this objective, KTCS are continuously collaborating with various agencies and stakeholders within this area to promote turtle conservation-based tourism.
A collective effort is crucial if we want to see more sea turtles swimming in our ocean waters and to bring back the balance to our ecosystem. Your individual support counts, however we need everyone's support to be able to see a more significant impact.
How you can help:
Educate yourself on sea turtle populations and factors affecting their population status. (Join our memberships and get updated with our turtle conservation activities!)
Spread the knowledge; it's good now that you know what's happening with our sea turtles, so make sure other people around you are made aware of it too. Repost, retweet, share around however you want!
Donate to a cause; find out on sea turtle conservation projects from various NGOs in your local area or anywhere else in Malaysia and get to know how your money is contributing towards the protection of sea turtles and its habitat preservation.