PHANG NGA: It is past midnight on a beach in southern Thailand and 12-year-old Prin Uthaisangchai is anxiously staring at a leatherback turtle nest, waiting for scores of the endangered hatchlings to scrabble out from the sand.

The Bangkok secondary school pupil is producing a short documentary about the snappers, under a programme run by the Environmental and Social Foundation, an NGO working to educate children about conservation.

That morning, a team of marine biologists noticed the sand covering one of the leatherback nests on Phang Nga beach was beginning to sink in on itself.

That was a telltale sign the eggs buried inside were starting to crack and that sometime that night the hatchlings would emerge and make a dash to the ocean under the cover of darkness.

But after more than 20 hours with no sign of any baby turtles, Prin and the team grew worried.

Donning plastic gloves, they carefully dug into the nest to give each squirming critter a helping hand into the world.

Soon the tiny turtles were scrambling towards the shore where waves swept in, taking them into their new ocean home.

“I feel very disappointed how we have to interfere with a natural living thing that shouldn’t need a human’s help,” said Prin. “But in the end, we have to help.”

Leatherbacks — the world’s largest sea turtle weighing up to 500 kilogrammes — are a rarity in Thailand thanks to habitat loss, plastic pollution and consumption of their eggs.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2023