The Price of Paradise: A First-hand Look at Zante’s Failing Conservation Efforts
By Mia Constantinescu
Zante, a Greek island renowned for its Caribbean-esque beaches, cheap prices and nightlife, is a crucial nesting site for Mediterranean’s loggerhead sea turtles. Unfortunately, mass tourism has overwhelmed the island as a habitat resulting in a decline in the island’s turtle population. Conservation efforts never succeeded and so, the collapse of the island’s ecosystem has begun.
As a zoology student, I have studied conservation and the issues surrounding it quite
extensively, but I don’t think anything compares to seeing it first-hand. To consolidate what I have learned, I spent the summer working in a turtle conservation centre – the Mediterranean Marine Life Centre. Before going to Greece, I had been debriefed on the issues surrounding sea turtle conservation and its current situation, but it was not nearly as impactful or insightful as seeing it in person. Being there gave me such a deeper understanding of what was really going on, and all the things that are contributing to a very distressing situation on the island.
I must admit, before going I didn’t know the extent of the problem that I understand now. I imagined myself saving turtles in the day and partying at night. It was Zante after all, known for its late-night clubbing and sleeping-on-the-beach aesthetic. The dry heat, sucked up by pavements, rushed to meet me when stepping off the plane. Jenna, the programme director picked me up in a tired, spluttering convertible (apparently, they mix petrol and water in Greece), but honestly it felt like a dream with the sun beating down on me and a breeze rippling through the car. It felt like an adventure. In true ‘Mamma Mia’ style I kept a journal of every single day I was there. July 17th, the day before I left for Greece, I wrote ‘I don’t feel like I have too many expectations. I am expecting it to be fun, and to make friends and to swim and to have a good time’ and that it was ‘so fucking cool’ that I was doing this. And while that all awaited me, so did learning about the devasting impact tourism is having on the turtles here, and how, in 5 years, complete collapse of the island’s turtle population is almost inevitable.
It was my first time travelling by myself, and the night one was rough. July 18th, the day I arrived, I wrote ‘Crying right now. I just feel overwhelmed and scared. I’m scared I will be lonely here’. Reading that back, I want to give past me a hug, because, knowing how my time there played out, feeling lonely was the absolute last thing I felt while there. My time in Greece fundamentally changed not only me, but also my outlook on life, and the natural world fundamentally and forever. Not only did I learn so much about myself, but I also truly learned about the deep issues facing conservation in today’s age.
We have reshaped the way we interact with our wildlife and as a result reshaped the world we live in. Around the world, from the beaches of Greece to the rainforests, the savannas, and the oceans, we are seeing the same story unfold – conservation efforts that do too little, too late.
The Mediterranean Marine Life Centre, located on the southern tip of the island -Gerakas Beach – was started by a Greek native, Yannis Vardakastanis. With an immense passion for the home he grew up in and it’s nature, Yannis works daily to protect the sea turtles of Zante. I met him for the first time sitting outside the centre’s bar, smoking a cigarette, his linen shirt billowing in the afternoon’s wind. July 19th, I wrote ‘Yannis, the owner, is quite cool, he was sitting at the bar wearing Raybans and a white linen shirt’. Yannis went on to teach me so much about the island’s failing protection of the turtles. For starters, after two weeks, when I’d only really seen Gerakas beach I told him I had learned so much, he replied saying I hadn’t even seen a quarter of the real problem and took me to Laganas bay. Laganas was once a huge turtle nesting site, now the beach is barely two meters wide in places with hotels, beach bars and restaurants encroaching right up to the shore.
I became suddenly so aware of what I was really here for, that all those previous expectations slipped away, and I realised how grateful and glad I was that we were nowhere near the clubbing area. Artificial light and noise pollution such as that seen on Laganas beach greatly disorientates turtles coming ashore. Light forces female nesting turtles to return to the water without laying her eggs, and baby hatchlings, who normally use the light of the stars and moon to guide them to the water, instead follow the artificial light, often into carparks and restaurants. They become dehydrated and exhausted before they can make it to the shore, resulting in their death. I was honestly shocked to hear that this was once a main nesting site, the beach was completely destroyed by anthropogenic use, and you cannot imagine a turtle ever going ashore here.
Turtle spotting boats are one of the biggest problems on the island. On separate holidays, while I had seen them before, I never understood how seriously they harm turtles. Most of these boats offer a money back guarantee if you don’t see a turtle, and so, when one boat sees a turtle, they signal to the other boats to join. As a result, the turtle is crowded around by anywhere from 3 to 28 boats, causing female turtles to drop their eggs in the water as well as causing heart attack like symptoms. I was recommended to go on a tour in order to fully understand what was happening in the supposedly protected sea area. I ran this idea by Yannis and seen as it was for research purposes and my own learning he allowed it – ‘Well feel guilty’ and with a grin he added ‘but don’t’.
The tour lasted 2 and a half hours and once in the water we moved to where 6 or 7 boats had banded together, under the assumption a turtle was nearby. Our boat listed very heavily to one side when a sea turtle was spotted in the water, with everyone rushing to get a glimpse. I remember stopping and looking at everyone on their phones leaning over the edge of the boat to spot a turtle who was clearly not enjoying the attention. I realised these days we don’t see the animal that’s actually before us or stop to consider the wellbeing of it. Now, encounters with animals have become fleeting content—something to capture, post, and move on from. Instead of engaging with nature, we use it for likes, often at the expense of the animals we claim to admire. They are just a photo opportunity, a statement to say, ‘I saw a turtle in Greece’. If our only connection to nature is through a screen, what happens when there’s nothing left to capture?
What’s happening here in Zakynthos is just one example of a much bigger crisis – a fundamental lack of care or concern for the very ecosystems that support us. If we truly want to protect our wildlife, we must do more than just watch it disappear. We must rethink how we live alongside it.
As a child, I dreamed of following in Steve Backshall’s Deadly 60 footsteps, creating documentaries that showcased the complexity of the natural world but witnessing the failing conservation efforts in Zante firsthand is what drove me to making my own documentary. I feel educating people on the grave impact we’re having as humans is vital – especially on an island like Zante where students flock in great numbers each year.
Conservation isn’t just about undoing damage—it’s about prevention, about responsibility, about recognizing that we are not separate from nature, but a part of it.
You can watch my documentary, ‘Paradise’s Price: The Cost of Tourism on Zante’s Turtles’ here: https://youtu.be/_8xbCyy6y00?si=WAdHr9p8_w0mp5YT
