Buka

A local school teacher, Anne Lydia Dandava, helped raise the alarm and a group from her village along the Lavelai Coast set off to rescue the turtle and push it out to sea.

“We beat the poachers. I think there were not too many of them. So they had gone back for reinforcements. And in the interim we rescue … we set the turtle free,” she said.

It's a rare success story in Papua New Guinea, where turtles and their eggs are considered a delicacy and often hunted as food.

For the critically endangered leatherback, the stakes have never been higher.

He said the last official figures for Papua New Guinea's autonomous region of Bougainville were 40 cases of the coronavrius - a rise from just three last Thursday.

Toroama said Bougainville's health officials had been trying to convince people to wear masks, wash their hands and maintain social distance.

There had been criticism of Bougainvilleans failing to respond to the Covid-19 surge but Toroama said Buka town would now go into a full, 14-day, lock down.