Praia Jalé

Praia Jalé is at the southern tip of São Tomé, the larger island of São Tomé and Príncipe, reached by a rough track beyond Porto Alegre and then on foot. It is a broad beach of dark gold sand backed by forest, on the equator.

Four species of marine turtle nest here — green, hawksbill, olive ridley and leatherback — which is unusual on a single beach anywhere. Turtle meat and shell were traditionally taken on these islands, and the conservation programme that runs here works by employing former hunters as monitors and guides rather than by policing them; it is one of the more frequently cited examples of that approach working. Nesting runs roughly October to March, with hatching into May.

The beach is open Atlantic with a shore break and no facilities. Swimming is possible in calm conditions and is not the reason anyone comes. Behind it lies an ecolodge of a few bungalows, and beyond that the Obô rainforest, which covers most of the island's south and holds birds found nowhere else. Leatherbacks are the largest of the four species nesting here and the least often seen, coming ashore in the middle of the wet season.

Development is essentially nothing. São Tomé and Príncipe receives a few thousand visitors a year, has almost no road on this part of the island, and no mass tourism of any kind. Praia Piscina and Praia Micondó on the same southern coast are the swimming beaches, and Príncipe, the smaller island, is a UNESCO biosphere reserve reached by a short flight.

Four species nest on the same equatorial sand, and the programme that protects them employs the people who used to hunt them. Come between October and March or there is nothing to see, accept being guided, and understand that São Tomé receives a few thousand visitors a year and has arranged itself accordingly.