The Rushikulya rookery, situated along the south Orissa coast is among the three mass nesting (arribada) sites for olive ridley sea turtles in India and is outside the Protected Area jurisdiction. Human settlements near the rookery including fishing villages are dependent on the coastal resources and as a result of this, there is human-animal conflict although local community live complete harmony with sea turtle in the area. Hence in long-run, there is need for exploring alternate livelihood options for the local community.

This project aims at capacity building of local community living in and around the Rushikulya sea turtle rookery substituting their traditional practices that maybe harmful for turtle, as visualised by federal/state government agencies. This project aims at implementing some feasible alternative livelihood options on a pilot basis and analyse the success of such programmes. Success of this project expected to guide future action on the protection of sea turtles along with safeguard of livelihood of local community as well encourage and implementation of similar programmes by federal/state government agencies.

The major activities of the project proposed are:

(i) Capacity Building Workshops and awareness among coastal community using printing and audio-visual aid, local community will be educated on the alternate livelihood options available for them

(ii) Implementation of alternate livelihood programmes through involvement of voluntary groups and

(iii) Evaluation of alternate livelihood programmes viz. small-scale seasonal poultry/dairy farming, promotion of dry-fish selling, traveller, tourism, souvenir sale centres at villages for tourists coming for sea turtle watch programmes at Rushikulya rookery along Orissa coast of India.