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Marine Turtle Newsletter 6:4, © 1977

Book Review

Anne Meylan
Department of Zoology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611 U.S.A.

Memorias de Arrecife Tortuga(Memories of Turtle Reef), by Bernard Nietschmann. The text, in Spanish, can be purchased from Banco de America, Apdo. No. 285, Managua, D.N., Nicaragua. To order, specify: Serie Geografia y Naturaleza No.2, Memorias de Arrecife Tortuga. Historia Natural y Económica de las Tortugas en el Caribe de América Central.

Dr. Nietschmann has brought together in this book a rich collection of documents, both historical and recent, detailing the natural history of the sea turtles of eastern Nicaragua. The green turtle, hawksbill, loggerhead and leatherback all occur in the Caribbean waters of Nicaragua, but it is the green turtle and the hawksbill that have become thoroughly entrenched in the culture and economic history of the region. Excerpts from the accounts of early explorers and maritime adventurers in these waters include some of the first descriptions of the natural history of the green turtle and the hawksbill. Selections from William Dampier's book, A New Voyage Round the World, published in 1697, include remarkably accurate observations on the distribution, nesting behavior, dietary preferences, and migratory capacity of the green turtle. Accounts by various other travellers, buccaneers, and castaways recount the colorful history of the region and the role turtles have played in the lives of the coastal inhabitants.

Selections from James J. Parson's The Green Turtle and Man describe how the green turtle became an exportable resource and how, as the focus of an international commercial fishery, it has suffered gross overexploitation. The effects of depletion on the social structure of the turtle-dependent Miskito Indians are described in papers by Nietschmann and Brian Weiss. Other contributions include selections from Archie Carr's The Windward Road and So Excellent a Fishe, and an article by Peter Matthiessen, author of Far Tortuga.

Dr. Nietschmann's important contribution has been a skillful integration of all these sources. His own work in the coastal villages of Nicaragua has given him a keen knowledge of the relationship between people and sea turtles, and his use of this central theme gives the book an interesting organizational framework.