By EFE-EPA

Seu Antonio leaves his home at 3:30 am every morning to scour the beaches in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia on foot looking for sea turtle nests to protect. This task, which he has been doing for 33 years, makes him the country’s oldest “tartarugueiro” (turtle protector).

Antonio Mendes Vieira, born in a Bahia fishing village, never completed high school but he has such a deep knowledge of his chosen task and so many decades of experience in seeking out the turtle nests on local beaches that everyone respectfully calls him “Seu Antonio” (Don Antonio, or Mr. Antonio).

The 57-year-old former fisherman is the main instructor for other turtle protectors in Project Tamar, one of the most successful environmental preservation initiatives in Brazil and which currently is celebrating the milestone of having saved from predators and returned to the sea 40 million newly hatched sea turtles during its 40 years in operation.

“I’ve been involved in this for 33 years, and so many of those turtles passed through my hands,” Seu Antonio told EFE regarding the results of Project Tamar, which has enabled Brazilian conservation authorities to remove five types of marine turtles that frequent Brazilian beaches from the list of species that are seriously threatened with extinction.

Project Tamar currently has 26 bases in Brazil which oversee 1,100 kilometers (682 miles) of beaches to identify places where the turtles lay their eggs and provide protection for their young from the time the eggs are laid until the hatchlings make their way back to the ocean.

The lengthy coastal area is monitored thanks to fishermen in the local communities to whom Project Tamar has offered formal contracts, with adequate pay, to care for the turtles rather than hunt them, an initiative in which the state-run oil company Petrobras is the main sponsor.

Seu Antonio is the instructor for the turtle protectors in Praia do Forte, a fishing village about 100 km from Salvador, the capital of Bahia, which has become an important tourist area.

Praia do Forte also happens to be where Project Tamar has its biggest base, given that it is the main destination of the turtles, who return there to the beaches where they were born to lay their eggs.

Some of the turtle protectors used to hunt the animals to sell them to restaurants, but they were hired by Project Tamar specifically because of their knowledge about where to find the nests and about the behavior of the adult animals.

Seu Antonio said that he never used to hunt the turtles, he made his living by fishing alone, although it was not prohibited to hunt the turtles.

“At that time, there were fishermen who ate them. They ate the turtles and the eggs, but nowadays everyone respects them. Everyone is aware and respects them,” he said.

“Every day I leave my house at 3:30 am, go along nine km of beach and at 11 I’m free and return home,” Seu Antonio said.

“I check to see if there are dead turtles … if any animal is threatened, if anyone is bothering them, if any are caught in nets or on the beach. And I inform the (Tamar) people about the nests that are hatching,” as well as about others where the eggs haven’t hatched so that authorities can open them and count those eggs, he said.

Seu Antonio is one of the most well-known people in Praia do Forte, where many people take his picture and take selfies with him.

“Every trainee has to go through me. They learn with me. … I teach them. And everyone wants to work on this beach because everyone loves me. I’m the head of the trainees and the founder of Project Tamar. They’re always coming here to make recordings, they call me because I’m the oldest person in Project Tamar,” he said.

“I love my job, I love my friends. I’m someone with friends all over the world,” he added.