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PIPA: I finally arrived in Pipa on the 24th February after pratting around in Natal (a genuinely rubbish city, its ugly and theres loads of crime) for two days. Pipa is a lively tourist resort with loads of nightlife (one huge strip of bars and restaurants) and other touristy activities, kite surfing, dune buggying ect. 100% of the local population work either directly or indirectly in tourism. Pipa is a pretty little place with cobbled streets, beautiful beaches, amazing ocean views and very friendly people. I will be living in Pipa for four months but will get plenty of travellling done in the general area whilst I a here, Recife, Olinda, Fortaleza and even as far as salvador.
SANTUARIO ECOLOGICO DE PIPA: The santuary will be my home for the next four months. The owner and my placement manager David Hassset has given us our own private house (almost we share it with the turtle specialist Armando but hes a pretty cool guy) whilst we are in Pipa. The santuary itself is huge, occupying over 200 hectares of Mata Atlantica rainforest and over two kilometres of private coastline. The santuary is home two a massive diversity of wildlife including several species of wild cats and hundreds of endemic plant species.Although its such a important area of ecological conservation the santuary has only four employees: Jose, Valdemir, sergio venao and arielho, leaving the santuary almost dependant on the help of volunteers. I personally do not work in the santuary however the three girls (Helen, ceri and laura) who I live with do a variety of activity ranging from working in the Plant nursery to giving tours.
PROJECTO TAMAR; Projecto tamar is an organisation started in the 1980 aimed at protecting the populations of endangered sea turtles in Brazil. There are five species of sea turtles that can be found in brazil olive ridleys, loggerheads, leatherbacks, green turtles and hawksbill turtles. Armando J.B. Santos in the turtle specialist in Pipa, he is only 25 years old but is already renowned for the his achievements and research. Matt and I have been working with armando catching and tagging Hawksbill turtles, monitoring population and nesting distribution in the area. Further research consistist the relationship between nesting and weightloss in the individual turtles, individual reproductive behaviour and genetical research involing abnormalities with hatchlings (i.e. two heads, albeno hatchlings and twins) Pipa is the secondary nesting area for hawskbill turtles in brazil but the research we are currently involved in proves that Pipa has a far higher concentration of Hawksbill nests than the primary nesting area. The work here is extremely demanding and ihave never met anyone who works as hard as armando, often going days without sleep. A normal working week for Armando will be around 80 hours.
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