For the third time in six years, a turtle has laid its eggs on a beach in Malta. Like the previous two, the event has fired the public imagination, even as it tests the limits of Nature Trust’s logistical reach. There are many reasons why this is so – why, in other words, a turtle nest matters.

The first is not specific to turtles. Reproduction in its various forms has a manifesto of hope written into it. Bertrand Russell tells a story of a parson somewhere in England who terrorised his flock with assurances that the end of time was imminent – only their terror subsided somewhat when they spotted him planting a tree in his garden.

Sitting in a field the other day, I could hear loud cracks and pops all around. It wasn’t clear exactly what about the parched tinderbox that is the Maltese countryside in summer was alive. It turns out that wild acanthus plants concentrate their last energies on little explosions that shoot seeds as far away as possible from the parent stock. I was alone in that field, with hope for company.

Still, the clutch of eggs deep in the sand at Ġnejna is not generic reproduction. In very many ways, turtles are charismatic animals. Most people consider them cute enough for children to play with the inanimate furry version. One of my favourite childhood toys was a metal tortoise that had little wheels for claws and could be convinced to ‘walk’.

Looks aside, there are things about turtles that fascinate people. They are, for one, a kind of Methuselah-of-the-seas who can outwit human time. Tales of hundreds of years of longevity are usually just that, but it is true that the turtles that hatched at Golden Bay in 2016 will outlive most of us. Loggerhead turtles have a generation length of 45 years, and the optimistic forecast has us on three legs when the Class of 2016 make it back to their birthplace to nest.

There’s also something dreamlike about an animal that most of us never get to see, but that, Father Christmas-like, visits in the undead of night. Now many seabirds do that, on Filfla among other places, but the case of turtles is perhaps even more special. Unlike Filfla, Golden Bay and Ġnejna are familiar to thousands during the day. That something so big and unfamiliar could be there, and laying eggs at that, at night, adds to the magic.

There’s something dreamlike about an animal that most of us never get to see, but that, Father Christmas-like, visits in the undead of night

None of this is lost on those who experience it. Every summer on Lampedusa, turtles come ashore to lay their eggs on the Spiaggia dei Conigli, metres away from the beach house where Domenico Modugno once lived. They’re also everywhere you go on the island, in the form of tourist trinkets, shop names, and even pizza toppings (not literally). The turtle is the unchallenged mascot of Lampedusa.

There are other, more prosaic, reasons why nesting turtles matter. By far my most disturbing childhood memory involves a fished turtle (I’ll stop there) in Gozo sometime around 1982. At the time, dead and dying turtles – some big enough to be my grandparents’ age – were staple fare at fishmarkets. It was common to see up to 20 lined up on their backs outside the pixkerija in Valletta, and turtle ‘shells’ were considered normal if rather naff wall decorations.

Until, in the early 1990s if I remember well, turtles were given protection at law. It was a rare instance of animal-protection legislation working quickly and effectively. By the mid-1990s, turtles had all but gone off the menu. Save for a few incorrigibles who need turtle soup to keep body and soul together, no one today would dream of killing a turtle.

Just this once, the word ‘iconic’ is unavoidable. Turtles aren’t just cute and charming. They have also come to symbolise successful conservation outcomes. Nor is Malta an exception, because, even as the global population is decreasing, the Mediterranean sub-population of the Loggerhead turtle has seen a small increase in recent years.

Nesting turtles are even better news. I quote from the Red Data Book for the Maltese Islands, published in 1989: “Given the present degree of use of this beach, it is unlikely that this site (Ramla in Gozo) will be utilised again by these turtles”.

Truly, the past is a foreign land. Not only were the turtles that took to the beaches in 2012, 2016, and last week not butchered as a hapless predecessor was 60 years ago, the recent nesting events have proved the authors of the Red Data Book wrong. (I’m sure they’re delighted.) The eggs at Ġnejna tell us that nature will take its chances, including in places that experience the most intensive human use imaginable.

It is, to be sure, a delicate balance. A few years ago I spoke to environmentalists on Lampedusa whose cars had been vandalised by locals who were upset that turtles had, as they saw it, appropriated the beach. On the Greek island of Zakynthos, turtle nests are the venue of a war between well-wishers and those who would have other plans for the white-sand beaches.

Both Golden Bay and Ġnejna are gold mines where every inch of sand is added value by way of beach umbrellas, sunbeds and such. It remains to be seen if we will continue to welcome the turtles as a different, but no less precious, form of added value. Meanwhile, the beating eggs in the sand bring the good news that humans and nature can coexist.

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