To Discover and Defend
By Maryann Hammers : Natural Health Mag

Instead of setting off fireworks on Independence Day, employees and guests at Mauna Lani Resort on Hawaii mark the occasion by setting turtles free.

Spawned at Sea Life Park in Oahu, the green sea turtles, known as honu, arrive at the resort as hatchlings to be raised in saltwater ponds for a year or two until they're ready to face the world on their own.

Pi'i Laeha is the caretaker of the ponds. Tossing food pellets into the water, he explains that the turtles get their green color from their algae diet, grow up to 400 pounds, reach sexual maturity when they're about 25, love to crawl onto the beach to bask in the sun, and can travel significant distances. One turtle, tracked by satellite, swam 3,000 miles to circle the island chain and return to the resort nine months after being released. The honu is a threatened species; its greatest predators are hunters, sharks, habitat changes and ocean pollution. As the juvenile reptiles swim around the pond, peer out from under rock crevices and lumber after the food, their well-being suddenly seems vitally important and personal.

"Nature, God and people are all one entity in Hawaiian culture," Laeha says. "Everything is connected to everything else." That, in a nutshell--or turtle shell--is the essence of ecotourism.

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