You’ve heard of the butterfly effect, but what about the turtle effect?
- Conservation Bubbles
- Jun 22
- 6 min read
By Morven Stanforth, BTC Intern of 2025
I would bet a hefty amount of money on the fact that none of you have ever started your day by tripping over a nesting Green Sea Turtle in the absolute darkness of a still island morning. It sounds like the start of a children’s adventure film - a child befriends a turtle before they embark on a wild quest together.
But when Peisee tripped over a nesting turtle one morning in 2004, the impact of that moment would ripple far beyond what that turtle could ever know. That is because this encounter sparked the creation of a flourishing turtle conservation project which, over the last 21 years, has become one of the most successful turtle conservation projects in the Malaysian state of Terengganu.
The story of Bubbles Turtle Conservation is not atypical of a conservation story since it is a story of struggle and strength in the face of adversity, but therein lies its beauty.
Visiting their glistening secluded bay off the east coast of peninsula Malaysia, I spoke to Peisee, co-founder of Bubbles Dive resort and the driving force behind its conservation project.
Speaking to Peisee let me understand the incredible story of this small organisation. Although certainly not the largest in the region, it would not be an exaggeration to label Bubbles as a shining success story.
What follows not only provides an entertaining story to those of you who are unfamiliar with the ups and downs of conservation work, but, when reflected upon, it can provide some inspiring advice to similar projects in their attempts to develop grassroots conservation efforts that are adaptive in the face of obstacles.
The Stumble That Started Everything
As I mentioned, it all began with a stumble.
After tripping over this nesting mother turtle by their small beach-front home on this deserted island they had created for themselves, Peisee and her husband Ronnie began to pay attention to what was occurring each night after the sun went down over the surrounding jungle hills.
Discovering that this tiny bay played host to several mother turtles each night, the pair made a promise to protect them. That promise was the seed from which their ambitious eco-tourism and volunteer Social Enterprise grew.
Today, Bubbles has released over 170,000 baby hatchlings into the ocean, and the number keeps on growing.
Importantly, however, Bubbles’ journey has been anything but smooth. In the early days, the couple had no roadmap, just instinct and an understanding of the pressing need to act. Things were different back then, Peisee reminds me, since public understanding of the importance of conservation efforts was limited.
Inspired to act, Peisee and Ronnie began collecting data on nesting mother numbers and their sizes to build a case for protection and legitimise their project’s need for help. Unfortunately, the eggs were hot property due to them being consumed as a delicacy, and so poachers arrived under the cover of darkness each night. Just like gangsters, she notes, they were not to be provoked, since just one or two nests could be worth the equivalent of a month’s salary.
In 2005, after reaching out to institution after institution to no avail, eventually the first small group of volunteers reached Bubbles’ shore thanks to the UK Eco-Tourism agent Real Gap. Since conservation grows as its man-power and funding does, this was the moment their power to create real change really intensified.
The Fight to Protect
Just as Bubbles took one step forward when volunteers quickly learned to confuse the poachers by creating fake tracks and disguising the real ones, they took one step back each time government marine park officials would retrieve the eggs to take to their own hatchery on the island.
Bubbles fought for the right to hatch a small percentage of their eggs themselves in order to continue with their data collection and thus further grow their own project. They were slowly given more and more autonomy, but not without fighting tooth and nail for it.
When data sheets from Bubbles and the marine park were compared and numbers were significantly lower than what Bubbles had given them, suspicions were raised about where the taken eggs were actually ending up.
By 2018, however, and as the consumption of turtle eggs decreased with the amount of people who understood it was wrong to consume the eggs of endangered species’, they grew tired of collecting the eggs and Bubbles was given the go-ahead to keep all their nests.
When Actions Matter More Than Words
One night Peisee recalls with passion was one in which the officials were taking the eggs from a nesting mother, and, impatient to wait for her to leave of her own accord, since her covering of her nest can take around an hour, they picked her up and shoved her back into the water.
The confusion and sadness of this graceful creature at the understanding that her eggs must have been taken by a predator is upsetting, and so was the reaction of the guests at the resort who had come to watch the mother lay.
What comes next, however, was what made this experience so important in Peisee’s own conservation journey.
She was greeted in her room by a flurry of guests exclaiming at the horrific actions of the ranger, and they were crying out for someone to do something. In that moment, she questioned how so many people could be aware of the need for something to be done, but not understand that they themselves could be that someone.
In this moment, her desire for their project to succeed intensified as she saw the need for their message to keep reaching more and more people. Peisee’s core message then comes to be - if you believe something should be done to make a positive change, why not be the person to help make that change?
We only conserve what we love, we love what we know, and we know what we are taught - Baba Dioum.
Despite challenges such as this, the project has persisted.
Volunteer numbers have slowly increased, and the dive resort has grown and brought more guests who continue to be made aware of the special nature of the beach.
The conservation project separated from the dive resort and then became its own social enterprise in 2025, which the team hopes will help improve transparency and open new funding streams.
Today, the project is thriving, as volunteers arrive from around the world. Guest education is the cornerstone of the program, with nightly turtle talks and opportunities for guests to watch nesting mothers and hatchling releases being some of the experiences that make visiting Bubbles such a rewarding adventure.
Despite the constant challenges facing small conservation projects such as hers, Peisee remains hopeful, “The younger generation cares more. Social media makes it harder to hide bad behaviour. People want to look good - even if it’s for the wrong reasons, we can use that.”
She leaves us by reminding us that conservation is not glamorous. It’s exhausting, it’s gritty, and it’s often devastating.
In 2022, a predator ant infestation saw many of the nests destroyed, and in 2024 the first turtle the volunteers saw that year was a dead one which had presumably been hit by a boat. In times like these, volunteers felt hopeless.
A paper was published in the event of this incident by our Director and Project Manager, Loke Wei Qi in collaboration with other researchers: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373027408_Predatory_ants_invading_sea_turtle_nests_on_the_East_Coast_of_Peninsular_Malaysia
However, Peisee reminds us that it is precisely in moments like these that our work feels so necessary. Even if we cannot save each turtle, we can educate each and every guest who steps onto our beach. Each act of education is a small act of resistance against a tide of environmental degradation. Because, as she so powerfully notes, “we only conserve what we love, we love what we know, and we know what we are taught”.
Peisee and the rest of the team are filled with hope. Their hope lies not in the scale of what they can change, but in the steady rhythm of showing up, teaching, and trusting that small efforts ripple outwards, and in the belief that knowledge sparks love, and love can drive change.
That is what keeps them walking the beach every night, ready to keep pushing on.
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