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Mr. Tomas Diagne is the Director of the African Chelonian Institute (https://africanchelonian.org/), an organization with a mission to promote the long-term conservation of turtle, tortoise and terrapin populations, across the African continent, through research, education, and grassroots collaboration. Mr. Diagne is an African freshwater turtle and tortoise expert who has been working to save threatened and endangered turtle species in Senegal for the past 20 years. He began rescuing endangered African spurred tortoises (Centrochelys sulcata) as a teenager and in 1992 he created S.O.S. (Save Our Sulcata), a non-profit conservation organization. He also co-founded and built the Village des Tortues in Noflaye, Senegal - a sanctuary and captive breeding facility for sulcata tortoises that now houses over 300 individuals and has re-introduced numerous others back to the wild. Mr. Diagne has also been actively involved in freshwater and marine turtle research throughout Africa. He is a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group. In 2009 he decided to create the African Chelonian Institute (ACI) in order to expand turtle research, captive breeding, and re-introduction to all African turtle species. Mr. Diagne is a 2019 winner of Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa.

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