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Limit the impact of work on the beaches
An architectural firm doing work to protect a villa from storm surge requested that the Réserve Naturelle to provide advice on the site along the coast at Baie Rouge, a site favored by sea turtles during egg-laying season. After getting the obligatory administrative authorization, the architect responsible for the project—a wall comprised of steel pilings deeply driven into the sand—decided to seek professional advice to limit try and best minimize the impact on one of the most sensitive sites, and just at the beginning of the 2020 egg-laying season. On January 21, Julien Chalifour and Aude Bergé met with the architects and the construction company to raise their awareness about the protection and reproduction habits of sea turtles. Pointing out that the solution with the least impact would be not to put up a wall, but to rely on natural barriers, the participants discussed various technical solutions in order to define a protocol intended to limit the impact to the site and to its future use for egg-laying. The work should have been completed before the start of egg-laying season in May, but was unfortunately delayed by the consequences of Covid-19.
The important points as outlined in the protocol include:
- Heavy machinery should limit their maneuvers on the site as much as possible;
- Storage of dirt and construction materials will be limited in the egg-laying zone;
- An awareness campaign for workers, including signage with rules to be respected;
- A daily control procedure to verify the absence of sea turtles or traces of egg laying around the work site;
- In the case of sighting a turtle or egg-laying traces, the Réserve Naturelle will be informed immediately;
- Lighting intended to illuminate the beach will be avoided;
- The Réserve encourages the planting of vegetation on the beach in front of the project. In addition to limiting erosion of the sand and being more aesthetic, this zone of vegetation will help encourage hawksbill turtles, as they like to lay their eggs in a spot with plants at the high edge of the beach.
