Where I worked, until February,
2014, there was a colleague in the office. He was head of registry. His name is
Mr. Bulley. Gbosange was his catchword. When we were going to have a document
copied, when we got to his office we greet him with the catchword gbosange. He cheerfully
and energetically responds, Gbosange! Elsewhere in the office when one meets
him, gbosange was the recurring word. It is pronounced gboy-sang-gay.
The stress and force is on the gbo.
I liked the catchword but did not know its meaning then.
I did not bother to know. However, more than one year after I had left the
office, I got to know the meaning of the catchword.
GETTING
THE MEANING
I attended annual general meeting of Databank Group on
July 22, 2015. Databank Group is a mutual fund company in Ghana. I have invested in two of their funds i.e.
Epack and Mfund. The annual general meeting was for four funds. I was to attend
two of them. The first meeting was for Mfund and the fourth and last one was
for Epack. After the first meeting, I had to pass time till the fourth meeting
started. I decided to take a walk. The annual general meeting took place at the
Accra Conference Centre, opposite Parliament House. It was during this walk
that I got to know the meaning of the word gbosange. It is the name of an
animal. It is the Ga name for Leatherback Turtle! Ga is the language of an ethnic
group in Ghana, West Africa. The person from that group is a Ga; as a group
they are Gas. They mainly occupy a patch of the coastal area on the Gulf of
Guinea in Ghana.
From the Accra Conference Centre, I turn left towards the
Ridge Church School (an upscale pre-SSS school in Ghana), and proceeded to
connect to the Liberia Avenue, I went up farther around the British Council
Library. On my return to the Accra Conference Centre, when I was crossing the
Independence Avenue, from the Barclays Bank side of the road to the Children’s
Park side, a sign stared me fixedly in the face. The title of the sign was
Leatherback Turtle. I was curious. Why was it called Leatherback Turtle?
Because of my curiosity and the fact that I run a blog on natural environment,
I was drawn to the sign. It was from the sign I learnt that the Ga name for
Leatherback Turtle is Gbosange. Part of the Children’s Park has been carved
into an office for the Ghana Wildlife Society (Accra Conservation Education
Centre), close to the Liberation Circle. It was on the fence of the office that
the sign has been stuck; there were other wildlife signs too.
Growing up as a Ga, my impression was that the one Ga
name for all turtles was Hala (pronounced hah- lah). I couldn’t be more wrong.
Hala is the Ga name for the green turtle only. I came to this realization on
July 22, 2015!
So now there are two gbosanges, so to speak, one a
catchword, and the other a turtle.
PROFILE
From this point forward I will dwell mainly on Gbosange
the turtle. It got its common name from the nature of its shell. Its shell is
not as hard as those of other turtles; it is leather like. It is mobile,
crossing both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It feeds mainly on large amounts
of jellyfish, thereby helping to keep their population (jellyfish) in check.
Common Name: Leatherback Turtle
Scientific Name: Dermochelys coriacea
Local Name (Ghanaian Languages):
Tormeklo (Ewe)
Gbosange(Ga)
Epuhuru (Fante)
Anwa (Nzema)
Weight: 400- 900kg
Length: 55-63 inches
Major Habitat: Beaches, dunes and deep oceans.
Major Threats: Fishing by-catch, habitat degradation and
hunting.
IUCN Category: Globally it is listed as vulnerable, but
in many subpopulations (Pacific and Southwest Atlantic) it is listed as
Critically Endangered (CR).
Social-cultural significance: Source of important
ingredient in the pharmaceutical industry.
Interesting Facts:
It lays clutches of 80-100 eggs yearly.
It is the largest of all the turtles on earth.
ENDANGERED
SPECIES
The sad thing about Gbosange is that it is an endangered
species.
Their population is reducing because of destruction of
habitat, hunting and fishing bycatch. In Ghana, for example, winning of sand at
the beaches is destroying their habitat. Egg collection in South East Asia is
destroying their habitat. In fact this has led to the local extinction of the
leatherback in Malaysia.
Estimates indicate that 26,000 to 43,000 females nest
annually worldwide which is a dramatic reduction from 115,000 estimated in
1980.
If you bought yoghurt, and after taking it you carelessly
drop the sachet, and the wind blows it into a gutter, and water in the gutter
carries it into the sea, there is every possibility that Gbosange could swallow
the plastic sachet. If it does, there could be digestion complications leading
to death. It is actually happening to creatures in the sea.
REVERSAL AND PRESERVATION
The WWF, for example, is doing the following
intervention:
- Working with local communities to reduce the consumption of leatherback meat and egg.
- Training local rangers to protect the leatherback turtle from poachers.
- Advocacy for turtle-friendly hooks for fishing.
- Fitting leatherback turtles with transmitters to track their movements, and hopefully reduce their bycatch mortality.
RALLYING CRY
Let us now use gbosange the catchword as rallying cry to
save Gbosange the Leatherback Turtle from extinction. The sixth mass extinction
is ongoing. It is said to be different from the others in that it is caused by
human activities (you may read my post titled “Life on the Brink-6th Mass
Extinction” dated July 26, 2015 for more information on it).
GBOSANGE!!
Source:
worldwildlife.org/species/leatherback-turtle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherback_sea_turtle
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