How the Four Seasons Nevis Is Leading the Way in Sustainable Travel — One Sea Turtle at a Time

This short film shows the Sea Turtle release at the Four Seasons Nevis’ beach on July 9. The turtle was geo-tagged and its movements will now be tracked across the wider region.

If you’ve been to Nevis, you know it. The energy. The pull. Maybe it’s the fragrant air, or the clouds of Nevis Peak, or the color of the sand. It draws you in. When you come to Nevis, particularly the Four Seasons, you just want to come back. It calls to you. 

But that doesn’t just apply to humans. 

You see, the small island of Nevis is one of the most popular nesting spots for hawksbill sea turtles in the Caribbean Sea — a veritable hotbed for a critically endangered creature. Female sea turtles return to the beaches where they were born, navigating the seas with the earth’s magnetic field as their compass. 

For nearly two decades, the Florida-based Sea Turtle Conservancy has been working to study the population of sea turtles that nest on this Eastern Caribbean island, through a partnership with the Four Seasons resort and the local Nevis Turtle Group. Each year, a team of experts from the Gainesville-based organization comes to the island to outfit several nesting sea turtles with state-of-the-art, non-intrusive trackers that can tell us about the travel patterns of these creatures. And the results are astounding: these creatures travel thousands of miles, both within the Caribbean Basin and beyond — hopping around the islands of the Caribbean and, eventually, returning to their original nesting places. 

“We’re trying to understand these animals, how they live, what threats they’re facing, and track them over long periods of time, which helps us develop conservation strategies,” said David Godfrey, executive director of the Sea Turtle Conservancy. “So everything we do to protect the animal is built from the science that we do.”

And the nearly 20-year partnership the Four Seasons has had with the STC and the Nevis Turtle Group is a unique one, helping to boost the local study and conservation efforts, but also providing a special opportunity for guests to immerse themselves in the world of sea turtle conservation — and a model for sustainable, responsible travel.

It’s more important here in the Caribbean, where the natural environment is such a fundament of its allure, where it needs to be protected — and, more importantly, understood.  

Each year, the sea turtle week sees a full agenda of turtle-focused activities for guests, from a sea turtle camp for the littlest travelers to engaging “turtle talks” with STC experts. 

On two separate nights, guests get to join the STC team on nighttime “turtle walks” to seek out nesting turtles. On Tuesday night, they found one, took it to the Four Seasons to stay overnight and get tagged with a geo-tracker. On Wednesday morning, a hawksbill was released on the beach to journey back into the ocean, joined by a large crowd of guests and Nevisian residents. It’s something I’ve experienced countless times in previous trips to Turtle Week, and each time it feels new: there’s something wonderful, something visceral, about the encounter, about watching the turtle make her way back to the deep, privileged with the chance to experience this up close. This year, I brought my daughters for the first time, and I could see the wonder on their faces — and the lifelong memories being cultivated — and, one hopes, a lifelong interest in the marine environment.

And that’s when the next part of the journey began. 

Sea turtles’ movements are so extensive that the Sea Turtle Conservancy has created an annual event called the ’Tour de Turtles,” which compares the movements of different turtles tagged across the Caribbean. The turtle that travels the farthest distance is crowned the winner. 

Each of the turtles gets a sponsor from a partner organization or resort, with the race helping to draw attention and support for a creature whose existence remains challenged by myriad threats – from human capture, climate change and ocean plastics, among others. 

On Wednesday, Nevis’ new entrant was a hawksbill named Billy, and her tracker will now be followed as she begins a vast, maritime journey across the Caribbean Basin. 

Will she go to Panama? Or Antigua? Maybe a stop in Montserrat? It’s an enigma, and part of the mystique of these elegant, aboriginal creatures: wide-ranging travelers who still mystify us with their movements. 

“They’re essentially living dinosaurs as a species,” Godfrey says. “They’ve been around for millions of years and they’re just very large, lovable, harmless animals that are doing their thing. And we’re always, as an organization, trying to do our thing to make sure they have a chance to survive.” 

You can actually track Billy’s movements here at the STC site. For more, visit the Four Seasons Resort Nevis.