Paper short abstract:

To attract funding, the managers of the Kuriat Islands marine protected area focus their efforts on a marine turtle. This capitalization process entails a specific type of relationship with the animal. I will show that the managers are attempting to both control and enhance the turtle's mobility.

Paper long abstract:

In Tunisia, marine protected areas (MPAs) are dependent on foreign funding, whether public (development aid) or private (philanthropic foundations). MPAs managers must therefore succeed in attracting donors from the other side of the Mediterranean basin. In the Kuriat Islands (Monastir), the MPA managers have found an effective way to do this: turning the “Kuriat Islands” into the "turtle Islands". Indeed, every summer in July and August, Caretta Caretta sea turtles come to nest on the sandy beaches of these uninhabited islands. In order to attract donors, the MPA managers focus their conservation activities on this emblematic species.

The sea turtle is thus engaged in a process of capitalization, defined as "a pervasive form of valuation that propels a consideration of return on investment and shapes our world accordingly" (Muniesa et al. 2017). How does this capitalization work in practice? On which socio-technical devices is it based? Above all, is it easy to capitalize the Caretta Caretta turtle, a migratory species that travels across the Mediterranean?

Based on my fieldwork, I will look at the relocation of a turtle nest by the MPA managers and the staging of the baby turtles leaving the nest in front of tourists. I will show that this spectacularization of conservation (Igoe 2010) engenders an ambivalent relationship with the animals. In this case, the managers are trying to both control and enhance the value of the turtles' mobility.