Manjula goes blogging...

I found him lying belly flat on the sand, his arm deep into the beach and a pile of eggs beside him. What? Didn’t he know he was breaking the law? I proceeded to tell him that he was not supposed to take turtle eggs from the beach. He stood up and explained he needed them for one meal. Looking at this completely emaciated figure dressed in dirty rags with a desperate expression on his sun-scorched face, what could I say? I walked on and he gathered his bag of eggs, followed me for a mile, and then disappeared into the forest. Questions raged through me: should I have prevented him from taking the eggs? but why was my first reaction to stop him? I was a foreigner, a temporary visitor, and he was a local resident - did I have the right to tell him what to do in his country? Was his opinion taken into account when the laws were established? Did it really matter if he took a few eggs - after all so many nests were washed away on this dynamic beach or dug up by nesting females? How could my mind be in such a dilemma when faced with such a simple situation? I read and talk about law enforcement on beaches and community-based conservation, I am studying population dynamics - shouldn’t I know the answer?