If you have ever been lucky enough to dive in Sipadan, Borneo you’ll know what it’s like to encounter ten or twenty turtles on a single dive. Being so used to divers they appear calm and unafraid in our presence. If you get to look them in the eye at close quarters perhaps you will notice what seems to be an age old wisdom behind those large, knowing eyes.

Turtles are reptiles and although they spend most of their lives in the ocean they have to come to the surface to breathe. The largest species weighing in at around 2000 pounds (900kgs) is the great Leatherback sea turtle whose shell can grow to over 6 feet (2m) in size.

Many species of sea turtles are listed as threatened or endangered. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species considers the Hawksbill and Green turtles as decreasing, the Olive Ridley as vulnerable, the Loggerhead as endangered while the Kemp's Ridley and Leatherback are regarded as critically endangered.

Marine turtles are vulnerable to a number of threats including by-catch from indiscriminate fishing practices, ocean pollution, ingestion of plastics they mistake for jelly fish which form a large part of their diet and loss of nesting grounds due to human development.

All marine turtles are included in Appendix I of CITES which identifies species threatened with extinction. Trade in specimens of these species is banned and only permitted in exceptional circumstances yet each year tens of thousands of turtles are illegally poached in countries as far ranging as the Philippines, India and Indonesia.

Each year in Mexico and Nicaragua some 70,000 turtles are caught and butchered even though hunting and consumption has been banned since 1990.