The Weekend Swim: Kasoi's Sustainability Letter

The most amount of items were slippers. Followed by toothbrushes, plastic straws, diapers, wafer packets, polythene bags, sanitary pads, bottle caps, glass and plastic bottles, discarded fishing gear and varied combinations of all of them. The tiny microplastic fragments were even tougher to collect. As a millennial, I grew up with plastic, A LOT of plastic, as part of my daily lifestyle. I for one, had no idea how to swap out of this plastic-economy, in which I was born into, and where do I find solutions. How much of this plastic affects the sea-turtles? The mommas, eggs and babies on the shore and in the sea? Academic data and Instagram videos of pulling straws out of a sea turtle provided answers in the format of tragedy.  After several brief episodes of anxiety, I did what I knew best- ask Mum. 

Mum (and most of her circle) was quite concerned about all the 14 billion tonnes of plastic in the ocean by then too. Her concern was rather towards the cultural affinity for the sea and seafood and how we may all be consuming more plastic than fish. As I narrated the incidents, she sighed and quoted some famous human by saying, "Necessity is the mother of all inventions for the human race". Mum's calm confidence in the complex, difficulty of tragedy is intimidating when you're dealing with plastic-waste anxiety. But she elaborated more. She spoke about her younger days and traditional tools folks in Goa used when there was just a house, some land to grow and zero access to anything useful. As we searched online we found someone making toothbrushes of bamboo, upcycled cardboard and even of metal?? We found period cups and bamboo earbuds. Someone was marketing something quite unheard of- shampoo in bars. 

I once read that the existence of civilization (that gives us freedom, dignity, safety, technology and food security) comes from the story of the femur. A 15000 year old human femur was found in an archeological site which was once broken and had been healed. It takes about 6 weeks for the human femur to heal and in the wild, breaking a femur means death as you cannot run, hunt or find shelter and are meat for other predators. It took someone to take the human with the broken femur inside, carry them to safety and nurse them back to health. 

The pandemic was when Morjim (now Goa) Sea Turtle Trust was founded. About 15 female olive ridleys lost their flippers that monsoon and it took extra-ordinary humans of kindness (like Mrs. Sonia Bhavsar and her team at Dropledge, the Forest Department, the local village priest and his wife, the team from the Marine Science department of the Goa University and our donors) to help continue and support the sea turtle conservation programs. The lockdown was scary and isolating with more plastic into the sea than out, but the resilience of the species (like the 15 female sea turtles) to survive, get better and go back to the sea and of humans who would go alone and clean these beaches, the locals who would drive miles to get the rescued turtles to the forest department, was what sustained many of us (humans and sea-turtles alike). In 2022, North Goa witnessed 50 nestings, the highest recorded number ever for the state with only a 105kms coast with sporadic turtle nestings. Many stakeholders, and groups were crucial to these successes, but in the heart of it was the values of kindness and resilience to ensure we all survive and thrive. 

As is the case of our plastic-polluted ocean and dwindling sea-turtles in 2022, it takes the kindness and resilience of humans to help others in these anxieties, to carry them through education and awareness and collectively work on innovation and solutions. 

An what better way to learn of resilience and kindness, than the sea turtles of Goa, who do not give up and swim with four or less flippers on plastic beaches and unwelcomed voices, for the sake of their species, and for the sake of the ocean, the planet and indirectlt (or directly) humanity.  Happy World Turtle Day once again :)

                                                                                                    See you next week!

Note: We would like to thank Tenaz Shanice Cardoz and the Kind Hearts Brigade for supporting this story. To know more about the Kind Hearts Brigade, please connect with them on Instagram @kindheartsbrigade