黎明破晓时，沙巴东海岸的马塔京岛上，一只微小的绿海龟沐浴着本能的召唤，爬过沙滩，冲向海浪，随后消失在广阔的海洋中——一段可能横跨数千公里的旅程由此开始。
As dawn breaks on Mataking Island off Sabah’s east coast, a tiny green turtle crawls across the sand, driven by instinct towards the surf before disappearing into the ocean on a journey that could cover thousands of kilometres.
它将去往何处无人能知，但若在史诗般的迁徙途中幸运相伴，它或许会在数十年后重返这片马来西亚的海滩，在此产下自己的卵。
Where it goes is impossible to know, but with a huge dose of luck on its epic travels, it may return to the same Malaysian beach decades later to lay eggs of its own.
这只幼龟是每年从沙巴海滩孵化出的数万只绿海龟之一。在数十年的保护努力下，该物种正经历着惊人的恢复，逆转了曾经的衰退趋势。
The hatchling is one of tens of thousands that emerge from Sabah’s beaches each year, as the species continues a remarkable recovery after decades of conservation efforts to reverse its decline.
如今，马塔京岛——位于塞勒斯海的一颗泪滴形礁石——已成为一处潜水胜地的豪华度假胜地。退潮时，一条被称为“摩西渡口”的沙洲将其小岛连通，游客在此常能看到各种体型的绿海龟在礁石间的海草上悠闲觅食。
Today, Mataking Island – a teardrop-shaped outcrop in the Celebes Sea – is a luxury diving retreat. At low tide, a sandbar dubbed “Moses Crossing” connects its smaller islets, where visitors are greeted by green turtles of all sizes grazing on seagrass among the reefs.
近年来，绿海龟上演了奇迹般的 comeback。2025年，它们被重新评估为“无危”——成为首个从国际自然保护联盟（IUCN）红色名录威胁类别中移除的海龟物种。IUCN红色名录追踪着全球动植物及真菌的灭绝风险和保护状况。
Green turtles have staged a miraculous comeback in recent years. In 2025, they were reclassified from ‘endangered’ to ‘least concern’ – becoming the first marine turtle species to move out of the threat categories on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, which tracks the global extinction risk and conservation status of animals, plants and fungi.
科学在保护这些有壳的水生爬行动物方面发挥了至关重要的作用。刚孵化时，它们仅几英寸长，重量约等于一节电池；但成年后，体长可达1.2米（4英尺），体重可达200公斤（440磅）。
Science has played a vital role in protecting these shelled aquatic reptiles. When they hatch, they are just a few inches long and weigh about as much as a single battery – yet as adults, they grow up to 1.2 metres (4ft) in length and weigh a hefty 200kg (440lbs).
如今，微小的组织样本正为保护工作者提供近乎“遗传地址”的线索。通过让科学家追溯海龟的来源地，这项技术成为打击野生动物贸易的重要工具——因为海龟仍然被偷猎者盯上，其肉和蛋在越南和中国部分地区被视为异国美味而被大量需求。
Now, tiny tissue samples are giving conservationists something close to a genetic address. By allowing scientists to trace where turtles originate, the technique is an important tool in combating wildlife trafficking, as turtles continue to be targeted by poachers for their meat and eggs, which are sought after as exotic delicacies in parts of Vietnam and China.
海龟不会停留在一个地方。它们会跨越国界，”海洋生物学家胡安尼塔·约瑟夫在接受《本周亚洲》采访时解释道，她指出需要建立一个系统来“指纹识别”这些爬行动物。
“Turtles don’t stay in one place. They cross borders,” marine biologist Juanita Joseph told This Week in Asia, explaining the need for a system to “fingerprint” the reptiles.
约瑟夫正在马来西亚沙巴大学工作，帮助建设ShellBank，这是一个全球海龟种群DNA数据库。
Joseph is working at the University of Malaysia Sabah to help build ShellBank, a global DNA database of marine turtle populations.
每隔两到四年，成熟的雌性海龟会返回它们孵化出来的确切海滩产卵。但在此之前，它们会横跨广阔的海洋，前往远超马来西亚边界的觅食地。
Every two to four years, mature females return to the exact beaches where they hatched to lay their eggs. But in between, they cross vast stretches of ocean to reach feeding grounds far beyond Malaysia’s borders.
在沙巴龟岛公园，保护工作已有数十年历史，每年记录的巢穴超过20,000个。自1977年以来，沙巴公园表示，这些岛屿已释放超过1400万只幼龟。
In Sabah’s Turtle Islands Park, conservation efforts date back decades, with more than 20,000 nests recorded annually. Since 1977, Sabah Parks said more than 14 million hatchlings had been released from these islands.
这一恢复成果在全球野生动物形势严峻的背景下显得尤为突出。世界自然基金会（WWF）于周四发布的《2026年地球生命力报告》指出，1970年至2022年间，监测的脊椎动物野生种群下降了73%。
It is a recovery that stands out against a bleaker global backdrop for wildlife. The WWF’s Living Planet Report 2026, published on Thursday, identified a 73 per cent decline in monitored vertebrate wildlife populations between 1970 and 2022.
世界自然基金会国际组织首席保护官杜阿迪·苏姆巴表示，协同行动对于巩固这些成果至关重要，他以绿海龟为例，指出它是少数几个亮点之一。
Daudi Sumba, chief conservation officer at WWF International, said concerted action is crucial to sustaining these gains, pointing to the green turtle as a rare bright spot.
“如果这些努力停止，我们可能会失去这些恢复成果，”苏姆巴说。“积极的临界点和自我强化的反馈循环有助于使恢复保持正轨，并在长期内维持下去。”但沙巴公园局局长马克拉林·拉金在接受《本周亚洲》采访时指出，要确保绿海龟继续成为保护成功案例，仍面临重大挑战。
“If those efforts stop, we can lose recovery,” Sumba said. “Positive tipping points and self-reinforcing feedback loops can help keep recovery on track and sustain it over the long term.”But major challenges remain to ensure green turtles stay a conservation success story, Sabah Parks director Maklarin Lakim told This Week in Asia.
“这些是海洋公园，我们没有可以实际围起来的边界，”他说。“我们人手不多[而且]我们拥有的资产，比如船只，也十分有限……成本很高，尤其是如今燃油价格居高不下。”鉴于这些限制，沙巴公园的海洋保护人员并不过度庆祝绿海龟在红色名录中的改善状况，他们指出，更为罕见的玳瑁海龟仍令人担忧。
“These are marine parks and there are no boundaries that we can physically fence off,” he said. “We do not have many staff [and] the assets we have, such as boats, are also limited … costs are high, especially with the price of fuel now.”Given these constraints, Sabah Parks’ marine protectors are not overly celebrating the green turtle’s improved status on the Red List, pointing to concerns over the much rarer hawksbill turtle.
“虽然我们对某个物种感到高兴，但对另一个物种我们却感到担忧，”马克拉林说。
“Even though we are happy about one species, for another species we are worried,” Maklarin said.
对于海洋生物学家来说，构建一个关于一生大部分时间都在迁徙的生物的种群和习性的完整图景是一个持续的挑战。
For marine biologists, building a complete picture of the population and habits of a creature on the move for most of its life is a constant challenge.
“如果你想拯救海龟，这不仅仅是海滩上的某个特定环节。而是整个海龟生命周期，”马来西亚世界自然基金会海洋物种战略经理加文·乔利斯说。
“If you want to save turtles, it’s not just one particular component at the beach. It’s the whole sea turtle life cycle,” said Gavin Jolis, marine species strategy manager at WWF-Malaysia.
该地区的主要绿海龟种群分布在印度尼西亚、菲律宾、越南和泰国。在沙巴筑巢的海龟可能会前往菲律宾或印度尼西亚附近的觅食地，从而暴露在马来西亚保护当局无法触及的威胁之中。
Major green turtle populations in the region span Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand. A turtle nesting in Sabah may travel to feeding grounds near the Philippines or Indonesia, exposing it to threats beyond the reach of Malaysian conservation authorities.
ShellBank数据库旨在追踪筑巢种群的健康状况、迁徙路径以及它们在海洋中度过数十年生活的方式。
The ShellBank database aims to track the health of nesting populations, their migration paths and how they navigate lives at sea that can span several decades.
同样，从觅食地采集的海龟DNA、尸体样本或从走私产品中提取的样本，都可以追溯到其原始种群。
Similarly, DNA collected from turtles at feeding grounds, from carcasses or taken from trafficked products can be matched back to their population of origin.
约瑟夫表示，她的团队自1998年起开始在马来西亚筑巢海滩收集遗传样本，自2011年起开始在觅食地收集样本，这些样本如今正在为ShellBank做出贡献。
Joseph said her team began collecting genetic samples from Malaysian nesting beaches in 1998 and from feeding grounds in 2011, with those samples now contributing to ShellBank.
但该数据库仍在建设中，因为研究人员正在收集足够的样本以覆盖整个筑巢种群，从而完整绘制该地区的图景。与卫星追踪不同——卫星追踪会追踪个体动物且成本较高——基因分析使研究人员能够绘制出整个种群之间的关联。
But the database remains a work in progress as researchers gather enough samples across nesting populations to fully map the region. Unlike satellite tracking, which follows individual animals and can be costly, genetic profiling enables researchers to map connections across entire populations.
该地区查获的海龟肉、甲壳或其他制品中的样本可以揭示它们是否来源于马来西亚、印度尼西亚、菲律宾或更远地区的种群。
Samples from turtle meat, shells or other products seized across the region can reveal whether they originated from populations in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines or further afield.
“ShellBank是一种工具。它只是将帮助我们进行[海龟]保护的众多工具之一，”约瑟夫说。
“ShellBank is a tool. It’s only one of the tools that’s gonna help us with [the] conservation of turtles,” Joseph said.
当太阳从马塔金岛的地平线上探出头来时，一群刚孵出的海龟宝宝在沙地上奔爬，它们用微小的鳍肢向着将在未来数十年里探索的大海奔去。
As the sun peeks over the horizon on Mataking, a bale of turtle hatchlings scrambles across the sand, tiny flippers carrying them towards an ocean they will explore for decades to come.
幸存下来的雌性海龟最终将依赖其内部导航系统返回这些海岸，产下下一代蛋——延续着保护主义者们数十年来一直在努力保护的循环。
The surviving females will eventually rely on their internal navigation systems to return to these same shores to lay the next generation of eggs – sustaining a cycle that conservationists have spent decades fighting to protect.
“‘最低风险’并不意味着‘无需关注’，”约利斯谈到IUCN重新分类时说道。“它所表明的是，长期的保护行动正在发挥作用。”由乌沙尔·丹尼埃勒撰写
“‘Least Concern’ does not mean ‘no concern’,” Jolis said of the IUCN reclassification. “What it does show is that long-term conservation action is working.”