GREEK OLIVE OIL 2001(The Official Olive Press)
Peace and the Olive
Connecting Greece and Japan through Milos and Shodoshima An exclusive article by Lily Venizelos
I have traveled to Shodoshima and was not disappointed, as the Mayors had feared, when I found out that the "sea turtle shells" on top of the shrine, I thought I spotted in the photographs sent to me by my friend, was a rendering of the lotus bud. During my visit to the island in 1990, I was actually shown a shrine to a sea turtle that had been washed up dead on the shore 200 years earlier. Sea turtle are my special passion, so you can imagine my delight when in July 2000 a loggerhead sea turtle hit the headlines in Japan when it became the first of its species to nest on the beaches of Shodoshima. Later, students of a nearby elementary school watched as 48 baby turtles emerged and disappeard into the sea. A good omen for the students next visit to Milos, perhaps!"
Lily Venizelos Sea turtle conservationist President of MEDASSET.
２００１年３月１６日 （PRESS RELEASE）
JAPANESE CHILDREN MAKE SEA TURTLE FAMOUS!
The night of July 8th 2000, a young boy walking on the beach in Shodoshima, in the enclosed Seto Sea, Japan, discovered a sea turtle with a shell 80 cms long nesting on the Togata Elementary School beach.
The local children gathered to watch the sea turtle laying her eggs.
About 90 eggs were laid and Marine biologists from Kobe advised moving the eggs about 20 metres west for safety and a suitable environment.
68 were still in good condition.
The children were asked to watch over the nest and went every night to see if the eggs were hatching.
On August 31st, after 55 days of incubation, the hatchlings began to emerge from the sand, and continued through the night.
51 hatchlings emerged.
Two of the hatchlings were taken to an aquarium in Kobe.
The rest were watched safely into the sea.
Older people on the island said they had not seen such an event for as long as they could remember.
The story was covered by the entire Japanese press, and continued to feature for 6 months.
Three months later the Togata children visited the two turtles, which had grown from 4.2 cms to 9.5 cms and now weighed 180 gms, in the Kobe aquarium.
A lifesize commemorative stone sculpture of a turtle and hatchlings was unveiled in Togata on 18th February 2001, in the presence of all the officials of the island, and press from all over Japan.
A turtle song written by the children was sung, and paper balloons were released into the sky carrying messages to the turtles.
Under the statue a time-capsule contains photographs and press clippings for the next generation.
Not far away there is a 200 year old shrine built to commemorate a dead sea turtle that had been washed up on the beach.
Then turtles had been forgotten until Lily Venizelos of MEDASSET (The Mediterranean Association to Save the Sea Turtles) visited the island and mistook the lotus flower design on the dome of the peace bell on the hill of the sun, for a depiction of a sea turtle.
At her instigation Shodoshima was twinned with the island of Milos in Greece, with exchange visits between the children of the two islands.
A local Shodoshima ferryboat has been decorated as a sea turtle, and a "turtle marathon" is run each autumn.
The Shodoshima people are now awaiting the next sea turtle visitor.
Text translated from the Japanese press.
For pictures please visit the EuroTurtle Web Site at: <http://www.ex.ac.uk/MEDASSET/medas/pressjap.htm>
