94 inability for turtles to access, dig and nest in the areas that are shaded by vegetation (Barbier et al. 2023). It is included in a marine protected area registered under the natural reserve status (decree 25-2009/APS, 2009), that is part of a larger zone of ecological importance, the ‘Zone Côtière Ouest’, listed as a UNESCO world heritage site since 2008 (UNESCO 2009). This area benefits from a long-term survey by a local Non-Governmental Organization ‘Bwärä Tortues Marines’ (Fourniere et al. 2015; Barbier et al. 2023). An annual average of 253.3 ± 58.8 nests have been reported across 17 years of monitoring effort (Bardet 2023). 3.1.2 The ‘Grand Lagon Sud’ nesting area (GLS) The GLS zone is a 314,500 ha marine protected provincial park (decree 25-2009/APS, 2009) at the southern end of the mainland’s lagoon (S22°00, E167°00), and is listed as one of the six zones of New Caledonia to be recorded as a UNESCO world heritage site since 2008 (UNESCO 2009). This area encompasses 35 coral reef islets, scattered over the park. Data used in this study were collected from seven of these islets (Figure 20-B, Table 8 SI Appendix) that make for 36% of the nesting activity reported annually in the GLS area (Bourgogne and Oremus 2020). The sandy beaches of the islets are composed of bright and coarse coral sand. The coastline vegetation is dense and presents diversified strata composition. Due to the narrow width of the beaches, few nests are completely exposed to direct sunlight all day long. This area benefits from an on-going monitoring program since the 2016-17 nesting season, which reports an annual estimate of 437 nests (95% Credible Interval = 328-582) (Bourgogne et al. 2024c).
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