About Us

Turtle Defense International (TDI) is a grassroots-based activist organization dedicated to preventing the extinction of turtles through creative action and education. TDI formed as a result of the current crisis facing the majority of turtle species worldwide. In that the majority of the world’s approximate 266 species of turtles worldwide are facing extinction, and because turtles have inhabited the Earth for more than 200 million years, Turtle Defense International was established to uncover solutions to the most pressing issues for all turtle species.

The idea of TDI was officially started in the fall of 2004, due to the lack of resources made accessible to environmental and animal rights activists concerning turtle issues; there are few turtle conservation groups, and few of those address the plight of terrestrial and aquatic turtle species. TDI is needed to broaden the spectrum of empathy; to give terrestrial and aquatic turtles a voice that they can not raise on their own.

TDI is a grassroots organization and as such, seeks to empower ordinary everyday people to take tangible action to save life, by offering advice and solutions as to the most effective ways to stop the slaughter.

By dividing the crisis facing turtles into campaign areas; including the atrocities of turtle habitat destruction and fragmentation, the ecological effects of "economic planning" (e.g. WTO, FTAA, EU), the Asian Market, the “pet” trade, and destructive fishing practices; TDI hopes to foster a deeper understanding of the threats to the conservation of turtles.

Biocentrism

Turtle Defense International seeks to spread the biocentric notion that turtles have a value in of themselves; that the turtles, and the natural world as a whole, are not simply a means to human needs. Every year, approximately 50,000 species go extinct, because humankind has adopted an arrogant philosophy of unlimited growth on a planet with a limited production capacity, absorbent capacity, and carrying capacity. Never before, has the Earth seen such a rapid rate of species extinction. Never before, have so many species, the embodiment of centuries and millennia of evolution, disappeared because of one species.

Turtles, sometimes referred to as “survivors in armor,” have been around since the age of the dinosaurs; leatherback sea turtles in particular have been around for more than 100 million years. Their survival was never in question until human beings took it upon themselves to classify them as resources, to use and exploit.

As devastating to turtles as the longline hooks that lodge in their throats and the bulldozers that ravage their natural habitats, is the lack of information about their predicament. At the current rate of industrial development, extinction happens in everyone’s backyard.

mailing address:
Turtle Defense International
PO Box 11733
Norfolk, VA 23517