Panama is a coastal village in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka, The Kumana Bird Sanctuary and Heritage Park are located southwards from Panama. Sea turtles play a key role in the marine ecosystem at global level, because most of the species exhibit a migratory pattern traversing national boundaries of many countries. Turtles are facing many threats including illegal trading, as a bycatch, unsustainable coastal development, and climate change.

The Panama Project was started in 2012 with Wildlife Ocean Resource Conservation (WORC) organisation. The first step of the project was to educate and train the community that was engaged in stealing the turtle eggs to become the patrol to protect the nests during breeding season. To protect the eggs from natural predators, cages were burrowed 1½ feet into the ground covering the nests, a harmless in-situ conservation method, that allowed turtle hatchlings to emerge through the gaps of the cage.

The stretch at Panama (east coast of the island) hosts nesting ground mainly for Olive Ridley (90%), Green Turtle (5%) & Loggerhead (5%) turtles. Within 10 years of this project, we have been able to release more than 150,000 hatchlings to open water. Sri Lanka has only 3 project sites that conserve turtles according to in-situ conservation methods: Rekawa, Tangalle and Panama.

It is important that conservation projects help enrich and develop the communities’ living standards and add value by generating income. DIMO has been able to support and build a complete house for Sugathapala – who is part of the community and a main contributor in taking care of the nests for DIMO. The goal of the project is to declare the stretch of beach at Panama as a protected sanctuary.