Guyana Marine Turtle Conservation Society - Shell Beach
Shell Beach situated at the mouth of the Waini River is a 90 mile stretch of beach along the Northwestern Sea Coast of Guyana. The area gets its name from the intact to finely pulverized seashells of mollusks, bivalves and univalves, which covers the stretch of beach. Sections of the beach have specific names among the local communities; the main ones being Gwennie, Iron Punt, Foxes, Tiger, Kamwatta, Luri, Annette’s, Peter’s and Almond. Shell Beach is a unique ecosystem encompassing mangrove forests, inland swamp forests and savannahs and bordered by the Atlantic seaboard. The entire beach area is subject to complex cycles of erosion and deposition that rapidly rearrange the mudflats along the shore in many areas. The mangrove coastal forests are similarly subject to extraordinary change as a result of tidal and longshore current action, and in the swamp forest inland from the contemporary coastline old beach ridges or “shell dams” may be found, testifying to centuries of subsequent coastal accretion.
Guyana Marine Turtle Conservation Society
C/o Shell Beach Adventures
Le Meridien Pegasus
Kingstown
Georgetown . GUYANA
Tel.: (592) 225 4483/4
Fax.: (592) 227 7344
E-Mail: gmtcs@networksgy.com
