LEILA FADEL, HOST:
There are about 20,000 endangered species in the world. The green sea turtle is no longer one of them, according to a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
BRYAN WALLACE: Consistent hard work pays off in conservation.
FADEL: Bryan Wallace led the conservation group's assessment for sea turtles.
WALLACE: We went from being pretty worried about green turtle populations to watching their numbers increase over the last few decades. Not entirely out of the woods yet, of course, but what the report shows that, generally speaking, when we do the right things, conservation works.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The sea turtles are not out of the woods. Never mind. Anyway, green sea turtles are all over from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, maybe in some woods too. They can live as long as humans and grow three to four feet long. There used to be a lot of them.
WALLACE: During the - Columbus' voyages and others, they could navigate at night around islands by the sounds of turtles breathing and their hard shells bonking into the wooden hulls of the boats. There were so many turtles.
FADEL: It's hard to know how many green sea turtles there are today, but Wallace and his team saw an increase in the annual number of egg-nesting sites. They estimate that since the 1970s, the population has increased despite ongoing threats.
WALLACE: One big one is fisheries bycatch. So that's when turtles and lots of other things become accidentally entangled or hooked - caught in fishing gear that's meant to be catching other things.
INSKEEP: Now, while green sea turtle populations are growing, other creatures mentioned in this report are closer to extinction. That includes three species of Arctic seal, and more than half of bird species are in decline. But Wallace is optimistic.
WALLACE: Our gains are dependent on continuing to kind of keep our foot on the gas and to continue to find, you know, the success stories - the things that are working, where they're working and to keep up that momentum. If you do the right things in the right places with the right people, good things happen. And I think that extends far beyond nature conservation.
INSKEEP: He says it matters how people think about conservation.
WALLACE: People can have hope, and people can act on the things that they are inspired by and the things that they find beauty and awe in. Find something you love close to you that really means a lot to knowing that it's there and to being a part of your life, and fight like hell to make sure it stays there.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANDREW BIRD'S "EHTIO INVENTION NO. 1")
INSKEEP: Fight like hell. Wallace says it might be corny, but when lots of people pitch in, it adds up.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANDREW BIRD'S "EHTIO INVENTION NO. 1") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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