This post is part of our Living Legends series that spotlights key people in sea turtle conservation.

Biography

A lifelong nature enthusiast, Dimitris Margaritoulis is credited with discovering the Mediterranean’s largest aggregation of nesting loggerheads in Zakynthos, Greece, in the 1970s. This discovery launched a career in sea turtle conservation and resulted in the founding of ARCHELON, Greece’s principal nongovernmental organization dedicated to long-term sea turtle monitoring programs, and in pioneering public awareness and environmental education. Dimitris played an important role in the elaboration of the “Action Plan for Marine Turtles in the Mediterranean” (1989) and the IUCN–Marine Turtle Specialist Group’s “Global Strategy for the Conservation of Marine Turtles” (1995), and he served 12 years (1999–2010) as MTSG regional chair for the Mediterranean. Dimitris helped to launch the triennial Mediterranean Conference on Marine Turtles and was president of the International Sea Turtle Society, for which he organized the 26th Sea Turtle Symposium on the island of Crete. He has received numerous awards for his lifetime commitment to the conservation of sea turtles.

What Was Your First Sea Turtle Moment?

In the summer of 1977, while beach camping on Zakynthos Island with my wife, Anna, and our two children, we wondered at the peculiar tracks we were seeing every morning on the sand. We suspected that they were from sea turtles coming out at night to lay eggs, so we stayed up and walked along the high beach and among the thorny bushes. After a fruitless three-hour effort, disappointed and covered in scratches, we returned to our tent on the beach to find a huge turtle covering her nest. Astonished, we stayed with her until she returned to the sea. This moment changed our lives completely.

What Is Your Proudest Accomplishment?

The creation of the Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece, now called ARCHELON, which has been in continuous operation for 40 years, with long-term programs now being overseen by a new generation of responsible and committed conservationists.

What Is Different Now from When You Started?

Unlike four decades ago, legislation, as well as onsite monitoring and conservation programs, now ensures sea turtle protection at the major nesting beaches in Greece. People, especially children, are well informed and engaged in meeting the conservation needs of sea turtles.

What Are You Most Hopeful (and Worried) About?

I am inspired by the hundreds of volunteers who participate every year in ARCHELON’s field programs. Yet I worry about the negative impacts of ever-expanding tourism and the encroachment of human development on Greece’s once-pristine coastline.

What Is Your Advice to People New to This Field?

Focus your vision; network with colleagues; share your work; give priority to the turtles’ ecosystems.

Dimitris Margaritoulis