Partner Profile: Olive Ridley Project
Partner Profile: Olive Ridley Project
Status: draft, awaiting review. Facts sourced to the organization's own site (accessed 2026-06-11).
Who they are
The Olive Ridley Project (ORP) is a registered charity founded by Dr. Martin Stelfox in 2013, after he repeatedly encountered olive ridley turtles entangled in ghost nets (abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear) while working as a biologist in the Maldives. ORP works to protect sea turtles and their habitats through rescue and conservation medicine, research, and education.
Focus
Sea turtles — rescue and rehabilitation (including a Marine Turtle Rescue Centre in the Maldives), ghost-net research, photo-ID of individual turtles, and education. Primary regions include the Maldives and the wider Indian Ocean.
What they offer a commons contributor
- A working model of turtle photo-ID and ghost-net data collection that can inform turtle observation guides and dataset cards.
- Educational material and species expertise relevant to commons turtle pages (verify licensing before reuse).
- A citizen-science pathway: divers and travelers can report turtle sightings and entanglements.
How to engage responsibly
Through ORP's official channels at oliveridleyproject.org. Any turtle observation guidance in the commons must follow ETHICS.md and ORP's own reporting protocols; do not publish precise nesting-beach locations.
Sources (3)
Every claim in this artifact traces to one of the citations below. Anything that could not be sourced was left out.
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